Neurod2 knockdown in Xenopus laevis tadpole brain retains cells in a proliferating, progenitor-like state doi.org/10.17912/mic... - I invite you to read the Beck lab's first ever micropublication! @zoologyotago.bsky.social and @otagobiochemist.bsky.social 🐸🧪 @micropub7n.bsky.social thank you!

New Zealand bug of the year: moth named Avatar after mining threat crowned winner www.theguardian.com/world/2026/f...

A review of fossil goose (Aves: Anserinae) records from the Miocene St Bathans deposits, New Zealand, with the description of a new species doi.org/10.1080/0891...

🐾🔬 Hands-on University of Otago Zoology Project 2026 — what a week! So great meeting everyone 🙌 From Orokonui Ecosanctuary visits 🌿 to dissection day, pest control chats, Tūhura Otago Museum, and getting up close with our skull collection 💀 Such an awesome experience!

@zoologyotago.bsky.social will have some new captive reared juvenile Southern Bell Frogs on display soon. Today they had a physical, and this one was especially grumpy about it. 🧪🐸

Huge congratulations to Cassie Mealey who submitted her MSc thesis entitled ‘Scaling Up Detection: eDNA for Elusive Lizards’ yesterday. Ka rawe Cassie!! :) 🎉

Editorial: Biodiversity of Antarctic and Subantarctic ecosystems doi.org/10.3389/fevo...

Reconstructing ecological niche and feeding ecology of pre-contact New Zealand avifauna from Harwood, Otago Peninsula doi.org/10.20417/nzj...

Fear responses in a nationally threatened seabird: habitat and landscape contexts influence flight initiation distance in red-billed gulls doi.org/10.1007/s002...

Plastic pollution and parasitism: Impact of nanoplastics on the transmission of a marine trematode parasite doi.org/10.1016/j.sc...

Mixing in Moderation: Slow Transmission of Non-Local Macroparasites Following a Population Augmentation of an Endangered Australian Skink doi.org/10.1111/mec....

📸🐚 Zoology Photo/Video Competition 2025 – Staff Entry! Limpet collection Photo by Chenhua Li 📷 Out in the field collecting limpets for parasite examination 🦠🔬 Chenhua Li is a postdoc in the Poulin Lab who studies parasites — the tiny organisms with big ecological impact! 🌊✨

Alison Cree & I were interviewed for an article that just came out in New Zealand Geographic! The graphics are brilliant. #WaspLove @zoologyotago.bsky.social @nzgeo.bsky.social www.nzgeo.com/stories/ther...

📸 Zoology 2025 Photo Competition - Staff Entry Photo by Connal McLean, Teaching fellow Big Nose, Little Bee 🐝 Digger bees (Leioproctus) usually nest in the ground or forage in flowers. This Leioproctus fulvescens went digging for sunscreen and/or boogers! 😄

📸 Zoology 2025 Photo/Video Competition Photo by: Caitlyn Trotman 🦎 Unhand me! Skink captured in pitfall traps near Tekapo Caitlyn Trotman is a student studying a Masters of Wildlife Management 🎓

📸 Zoology 2025 Photo entries Photos by Kate Bonné, Postgrad Botany student drawn into zoology via conservation work Maybe don’t touch – marine polychaete worm on Rakiura 🌊 Kake – adult female sea lion at Hooper’s Inlet 🦭 Courting – cicadas on thistle 🌿 Hitching a ride – orbweaver on kahukura 🕷️🦋

📸 Zoology 2025 Photo/Video Competition Photos by Ava Thomas 🐦 Takahē – once thought extinct, now increasing in predator-free areas incl. Orokonui 🏞️ Miromiro – common native bush bird, least concern (female) 🌿 Tītitipounamu – common native bush bird, least concern 💚

📸 Zoology 2025 Photo/Video Competition Navigating Mackenzie Basin 🌿🏞️ Photo by Kristine Grayson WLM Techniques course observing braided river habitat supporting the last remaining kakī 🐦 Visiting Academic (University of Richmond), Semester 1, 2025 🎓🌏

Huge congratulations to Oscar Thomas who submitted his MSc thesis at the weekend. It’s possible that he was the first student to submit a thesis from a boat anchored off the Sub-Antarctic Islands..... (in keeping with the adventures of his research journey!). Ka rawe Oscar! 🎉

Congratulations to Cameron McDougall, who placed 2nd in the standard talk category, and to Kahu Hema and Harrison Foor, who jointly won 1st place in the speed talk category, at the recent New Zealand Molecular Ecology Conference. 🎉

 Congratulations to Mia Milsom and Cassidy Storey, our 2025 recipients of the Jamieson-Bishop Research Award! 🎉The award provides small grants to assist outstanding Zoology research students with their thesis research.

Otago has joined forces with Ngāti Hine Health Trust, one of the largest Māori health providers in Aotearoa, to address and improve persistent inequities in diabetes care for Māori ❤️‍🩹 Read more here ⬇️

Mixing in Moderation: Slow Transmission of Non-Local Macroparasites Following a Population Augmentation of an Endangered Australian Skink doi.org/10.1111/mec....

🦭📸 Student entry for the Zoology Photo/Video Comp 2025! “Kekeno” by Ava Thomas, a beautiful shot of an NZ fur seal, one of Aotearoa’s coastal regulars and classified as Least Concern. Ava is a second-year Zoology & Ecology major with a soft spot for native birds. 🌿✨

🦅📸 Student entry - Zoology Photo/Video Comp 2025! “A Collection of Native Birds” by Diego Carena-Santiago featuring a feeding Tarapirohe, stretching Tōrea pango, strutting Hoiho, intense Kārearea portrait, and Pāpango in flight. Diego is a BSc student in Ecology & Zoology 🌿✨

🐦📸 Juvenile tern contemplating life… and fish traps 🐟😂 Shot by Ross Thompson (Carolyn Burns Chair in Freshwater Science) for the 2025 Zoology Photo/Video Comp. 💧✨

Huge thanks to Dr. Jerusha Bennett at the University of Otago @zoologyotago.bsky.social for the opportunity for us to create the animation of this incredible trematode parasite Copiatestes!! ❤️ Check out the video and learn more about the mysterious anklets on sea bird legs! youtu.be/EAt9cONTD88

How Important Is the Precise Matching of Provenance in Weed Biocontrol? A Case Study With Acacia auriculiformis Herbivores doi.org/10.1111/eea....

Diet‐Faeces Trophic Discrimination Factor and Gut Passage Time of an Aotearoa New Zealand Insectivorous Bat, Chalinolobus tuberculatus, Determined via Controlled Feeding Experiment doi.org/10.1111/jpn....

Assessing how biofilms modulate stream periphyton metacommunity assemblage: A translocation experiment doi.org/10.1002/ecy....

Commonly used funnel trap causes rostral damage in Lakes skink (Oligosoma aff. chloronoton ‘West Otago’) doi.org/10.20417/nzj...

Ground‐Truthing of MaxEnt Models Reveals Poor Predictive Accuracy for Lizards in the Mackenzie Basin, New Zealand doi.org/10.1002/ece3...

We're hosting a #career panel for #WomenInOceanScience with a lovely panel of #marine-focused #women. They'll talk about their #career #journey and how they contribute to #ocean #science. @universityofotago.bsky.social @hollykoch20.bsky.social @zoologyotago.bsky.social @tuhura.bsky.social

Acoustic monitoring reveals widespread distribution of pekapeka across an isolated forest ecosanctuary, Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari doi.org/10.20417/nzj...

🦎 Student Non-Bird Photo | Zoology Photo/Video Comp 2025: “Sleepy Stumpy Bumpy” by Becca Barnett (3rd-yr Zoology). Meet Bumps, a shingleback/sleepy lizard from Orana Wildlife Park mid-“climb” attempt—she bailed soon after 😴. Herp joy, captured. 📸🌿

🐦 Student Bird Photo | Zoology Photo/Video Comp 2025 “Urban Aviary” by Sam Clark (2nd-yr Zoology & Microbiology, Otago). Ōtepoti’s everyday avifauna: Kererū, Pīwakawaka, Tiu, Pūtangitangi. Urban birds doing their thing. 📸🌿

🔬🪱 Video entry | Zoology Photo/Video Comp 2025: “Hey, I am alive!” by Xuhong Chai (3rd-yr PhD). At 100×, an upside-down, invitro-reared Maritrema poulini trematode stretches and expels waste on a slide. Xuhong studies the parasite’s microbiome and its freshwater isopod hosts.

If you want to study a genetic disorder of growth, in a non-mammalian model system, Xenopus 🐸 has a unique advantage. As we show with Recql4 in G3 this month, it is possible to knock out a gene with CRISPR on just one side of the animal doi.org/10.1093/g3jo... 🧪

🐣 3rd Place - Video | Zoology Photo/Video Competition 2025: “Tūturiwhatu” (NZ dotterel, Charadrius obscurus) by Ava Thomas (2nd-year Zoology & Ecology). Endangered (~2,500 left). Filmed in Coromandel: a chick tucks into its parent’s feathers to dodge the wind. 🐦🌿 www.facebook.com/share/v/16BJ...

🧠💚 Mental Health Awareness Week (6–12 Oct)! We’re celebrating the Five Ways to Wellbeing with chill, drop-in events. Grab a Self-Care Bingo sheet at the front desk & complete one for a prize. Uni-wide events too for staff/students (tinyurl.com/3xze36fd). Poster 👇

🎬 2nd Place — Video | Zoology Photo/Video Comp 2025: “Microplastic Sampling in the Central Lakes Area.” By Alice Gilbert (MSc, Freshwater). On Lake Dunstan with WAI Wānaka, Alice samples for microplastics. No animals on camera (invertebrates likely lurking!). www.facebook.com/share/v/1Chp...

🐝 3rd Place — Staff Photo | Zoology Photo/Video Comp 2025: “Bumble Bee Inspired Progress Flag” by Senior Lecturer Jenny Jandt @thewasplady.bsky.social. Bees across Ōtago—field, backyard & glasshouse—celebrate colour and pride in our Rainbow Community. 🌈

🏆 2nd place Staff Photo – Zoology Comp 2025! 🦂 Seriously cool scorpion by Jo Monks, snapped under UV during night-time escapades in Borneo at the World Congress of Herpetology. Jo is a Senior Lecturer who loves lizards & champions science for their conservation.

Another case of island gigantism: the extinct Hodgens’ Waterhen (Tribonyx hodgenorum) is a member of Porzana (Aves: Rallidae) doi.org/10.1007/s103...

Brain-Encysting Trematodes Increase the Frequency but Reduce the Repeatability of Surfacing Behaviour in Mottled Triplefin doi.org/10.1111/eth....

Population structure of three New Zealand crested penguins identifies current conservation challenges for the Fiordland penguin/tawaki, erect-crested penguin, and eastern rockhopper penguin doi.org/10.1371/jour...

Incidental distribution and activity of the flightless Campbell Island teal (Anas nesiotis) on Campbell Island/Motu Ihupuku, New Zealand www.birdsnz.org.nz/wp-content/u...

🌈✨ Throwback to Rainbow Happy Hour (15 Aug 2025)! ✨🌈 Colourful snacks, Bingo, prizes & the brightest outfits filled the Zoology Tea Room with joy 🎉 Huge thanks to everyone who joined & to our prize donors 💜

🌈☕✨ Throwback to Scones with the Zoology Rainbow Committee! ✨☕🌈 On 12th August we shared good vibes, fresh scones, and colourful company. Thanks to everyone who joined us — your smiles made the morning even sweeter! 💜🌸

Congratulations to Katie Buschang, PhD student from Zoology, who finished runner-up at the University 3 minute-thesis competition grand finale. www.facebook.com/share/p/14Gh...