Te Puna Kararehe - Animal Behaviour and Husbandry Centre

03/08/2026

Nature is full of strange success stories - this one begins in mud and ends in dust.

Nothobranchius is a genus of small freshwater killifish, native (mostly) to East Africa. 

In the wild, its home is a puddle. Not a lake. Not a river. Just a puddle. A puddle that exists for only a short while - wet in the wet season, dry in the dry season. Not a place you’d expect to find a fish, but Nothobranchius have evolved to live there. 

Their whole existence runs on a tight schedule. Hatch. Grow up. Find another fish. Mate. Lay eggs in the mud. Die. All before the water evaporates. The eggs stay behind, buried in the earth for months, waiting for the rain. When it comes, they explode into life, and the cycle begins again.

It's one of those stories that makes evolution feel like an endless series of surprisingly successful improvisations.

And the fish themselves? Ridiculously beautiful. Electric blues. Carmine reds. Tiny jewels living lives measured not in years, but in weather.

The pair of Nothobranchius rubripinnis in this video are the newest residents at Te Puna Kararehe - for a limited time only. 

03/08/2026

Nature is full of strange success stories - this one begins in mud and ends in dust.

Nothobranchius is a genus of small freshwater killifish, native (mostly) to East Africa.

In the wild, its home is a puddle. Not a lake. Not a river. Just a puddle. A puddle that exists for only a short while - wet in the wet season, dry in the dry season. Not a place you’d expect to find a fish, but Nothobranchius have evolved to live there.

Their whole existence runs on a tight schedule. Hatch. Grow up. Find another fish. Mate. Lay eggs in the mud. Die. All before the water evaporates. The eggs stay behind, buried in the earth for months, waiting for the rain. When it comes, they explode into life, and the cycle begins again.

And the fish themselves? Ridiculously beautiful. Electric blue. Carmine reds. Tiny jewels living lives measured not in years, but in weather.

The male Nothobranchius rubripinnis in this video is the newest resident at Te Puna Kararehe - for a limited time only.

Photo: Ben Goodwin.

13/07/2026

07/07/2026

Throwback to last year when we did a heap of red admiral butterfly / kahukura work in our butterfly house.

07/07/2026

It’s weird that we know so little about some of our most iconic and distinctive native animals.

For the past two years, students at Te Puna Kararehe have been researching New Zealand admiral butterflies (Vanessa spp.). Their projects have focused on discovering which plants the caterpillars prefer to eat, and how different food sources influence their growth and development.

Photo 1. Red admiral butterfly or kahukura (Vanessa gonerilla)
Photo 2. Larvae of yellow admiral butterfly or kahukowhai (Vanessa itea)
Photo 3. Larval rearing enclosure. I this case for a red admiral caterpillar.

Photographs by Ben Goodwin.

28/06/2026

Not all research happens in fancy high-tech labs – in fact, most doesn’t.

At Te Puna Kararehe we’ve been doing student-led ecological research on Chrysosemelid leaf beetles for a couple of years now. The latest species under investigation is Peltoschema orphana, a beautiful Australian leaf beetle that established itself in Auckland about eight years ago. As far as we know, this is the first time that this species has been bred in captivity.

04/06/2026

The lizard enclosures at Te Puna Kararehe were designed as reflections of the natural places that each species evolved within - Beach, scrub and bush in these examples.
Echoing these environments in climate, structure, texture and variation facilitates natural behaviours in the species who live within: basking, exploring, foraging, climbing, retreating. The result not only benefits the welfare for the animals but also gives students a more meaningful understanding of how the animals utilise their environments.

04/06/2026

Elegant gecko (Naultinus elegans), at Te Puna Kararehe.