Native fish in the news



A beautiful giant kokopu in the wild. Photo: Brian Sheppard, DOC.

Here are a few articles about native fish that have been in the news lately:

Hunting for elusive whitebait eggs

Trout harming native fish

Giant kokopu safari in Wellington

If you want to see some of New Zealand's native fish up close without having to take a safari, come visit our 5000L native fish tank int he Te Awa exhibit. You can see beauties like giant kokopu, redfin bullies and even koaro.

Also, if you want to keep up with the latest native fish news, we recommend you follow the facebook page New Zealand Native Fish.

Congrats Auckland Zoo!

Photo: Auckland Zoo.

Auckland Zoo recently announced a great achievement for native New Zealand frogs - they have successfully bred Archey's frogs in their captive breeding programme!

Read: Big leap forward in breeding of rare frog

If you have visited Te Manawa's frogs before, you might know that our frogs are not native frogs, but imports from Australia. Although we would much rather be displaying New Zealand's unique native frogs, they are highly endangered and - as Auckland Zoo and other captive institutions have found - very difficult to breed in captivity. Perhaps with Auckland's success, more institutions will be able to gain the skills necessary for keeping native frogs and ultimately help to start revitalising the population.

Welcome to our new arrivals



Meet Hasselhoff, one of the new bell frogs in Te Awa exhibition. Photo: Erica Prier



You may have noticed recently that the 'Coming Soon' sign is out and the newest residents of Te Awa are in! Two enclosures in the Conservatory are now full of plants and one of these now has 5 little bell frogs. These guys had only just grown out of their tadpole stage when we put them in the enclosure so they are still quite small, but they will soon be growing several times bigger over the next few months.



Can you spot the frog in this picture? Photo: Erica Prier.



Bell frogs come in a variety of green and brown shades so they camoflauge very well amongst the plants and leaf litter. One of their favourite places to hang out is at the base of the pepper trees or even basking on the leaves. A few of the more bold members of the group love to hang out near the water, earning two of them the name of 'The Hasselhoffs'.

Hasselhoff just after spraying the enclosure. Photo: Erica Prier.

If you're having trouble spotting the frogs, come along to our public feeding on Saturdays and Sundays at 3pm and one of the Keepers can help you locate them. In the meantime, we'll keep fattening them up with crickets, fruit flies and mealworms!

P.S. If you're wondering what is going in the other enclosure in the conservatory, we'll be posting about that soon!