Coasts

This week’s critter is a living deep sea treasure, in a group commonly known as the golden corals.

Sponges are amongst the most common marine invertebrates that inhabit the New Zealand coastline, from the intertidal zone down to the continental shelf, to abyssal plains and deep ocean trenches.

On 29 September 2015 the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Rt Hon John Key, announced a new Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary stretching from Raoul Island in the north to L’Esperance Rock in the south – covering an area of 620,000 square kilometres of ocean.

Although it boasts a pretty nice pair of antlers, you won’t be seeing today’s critter pulling Santa’s sled anytime soon, being a small crab that lives at great depths.

The NIWA Biodiversity Memoir series comprises comprehensive, definitive, illustrated reference works that capture the rigorous, peer-reviewed scientific study of New Zealand’s distinctive marine fauna and flora.

On this page you will find useful information and resources on New Zealand's marine flora and invertebrate fauna.

This week we re-visit a recent blog featuring some new nematode worm species discovered at Hataitai beach in Wellington.

Where in New Zealand might you find a witchy finger sponge or a pie-crust crab? The answer will be found in New Zealand’s first series of electronic identification guides for marine invertebrates.

Some of our colleagues have just published an article on a new species of tanaid from New Zealand that was found living inside tiny gastropod shells!

This iridescent snail from the freezing cold, deep waters of Antarctica is Falsimargarita gemma (E. A. Smith, 1915).

Sea cucumbers are usually, well cucumber-shaped, however there are exceptions.