A spectacular illustrated picture book exploring New Zealand's unique landscapes and its incredible wildlife by the author of Aotearoa- The New Zealand Story. Winner NZ Booklover's Best Children's Book Award 2020 Storylines Notable Non-Fiction Award 2020 Long before waka touched Aotearoa's shores, the land of the long white cloud was home to an array of creatures uniquely adapted to its environments and protected by its isolation. Encounter New Zealand's incredible wildlife in this spectacular visual exploration. Journey through ocean, sky and land to meet a marvellous range of organisms. Discover fascinating facts, and learn how we influence the survival of our living treasures. In this award-winning and magnificent companion volume to Aotearoa- The New Zealand Story, Gavin Bishop weaves a compelling visual narrative of our land, our people and our wildlife - past, present and future.

Touching on indigenous Maori relationships with the now-extinct, flightless moa; the attitudes of Pakeha, or European, settlers toward sheep; the iconography of whales and dolphins; the problems of pest-control; and the pleasures of pet-keeping, this modern-day bestiary is a fascinating study of human–animal relations. In the book’s four parts, the authors unravel the contradictory ways New Zealanders nurture and eradicate, glorify and demonize, cherish and devour, and describe and imagine animals. The study brings together insights from New Zealand’s arts and literature, popular culture, historiography, media, and everyday life to describe and analyze their interactions with nga kararehe and nga manu, the beasts and birds of the land. In doing so, it illuminates fundamental aspects of New Zealand society: how New Zealanders understand their own identities and those of others; how they regard, inhabit and make use of the natural world; and how they think about what they buy, eat, wear, watch, and read. Rich, multifaceted, and engaging, A New Zealand Book of Beasts satisfyingly explores how culture both shapes and is shaped by the “beasts” of Aotearoa.

Most New Zealanders will easily recognise and identify our unique wildlife - whether it's a tree weta, common dolphin or a kiwi. We know quite a lot about them - how and where they live, what they do, what they eat and so on. But what makes them tick? What does an insect's eye actually see? Does an earthworm have 'guts'? Does the flightless kiwi have any wings under all those feathers? Author and illustrator Dave Gunson delves deep inside some of our best-known species to see what's really going on in there, and to find out just how our native creatures work!

To survive in the wild, all animals need a natural form of defence against predators. Using their teeth, claws, horns and antlers to defend, fight and hunt, these incredibly powerful creatures do whatever it takes to stay alive. Join twelve-year-old author James Ryan as he shares a bunch of surprising, cool and occasionally gross facts with us about some of nature's most awesome animals and their built-in weapons.

The Handbook of New Zealand Mammals is the only definitive reference on all the land-breeding mammals recorded in the New Zealand region (including the New Zealand sector of Antarctica). It lists 65 species, including native and exotic, wild and feral, living and extinct, residents, vagrants and failed introductions. It describes their history, biology and ecology, and brings together comprehensive and detailed information gathered from widely scattered or previously unpublished sources. The description of each species is arranged under standardised headings for easy reference. Because the only native land-breeding mammals in New Zealand are bats and seals, the great majority of the modern mammal fauna comprises introduced species, whose arrival has had profound effects both for themselves and for the native fauna and flora. The book details changes in numbers and distribution for the native species, and for the arrivals it summarises changes in habitat, diet, numbers and size in comparison with their ancestral stocks, and some of the problems they present to resource managers. For this third edition, the text and references have been completely updated and reorganised into Family chapters. The colour section includes 14 pages of artwork showing all the species described and their main variations, plus two pages of maps.

Drawing on a range of perspectives -philosophy, literary criticism, art history and cultural studies-the essays collected here explore unconventional ways of knowing animals, offering new insights into apparently familiar relationships between humans and other living beings.