Whale watching in New Zealand is predominantly centered around the areas of Kaikoura and the Hauraki Gulf, the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park (just outside Auckland city) is also a significant whale watching area with a resident population including which toothed whale belonging to the oceanic dolphin family, of which it is the largest member?
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Whale watching in New Zealand Whale watching in New Zealand is predominantly centered around the areas of Kaikoura and the Hauraki Gulf. Known as the 'whale capital', Kaikoura is a world-famous whale watching site, in particular for sperm whales which is currently the most abundant of large whales in New Zealand waters. The Hauraki Gulf Marine Park (just outside Auckland city) is also a significant whale watching area with a resident population of Bryde's Whales commonly viewed alongside other cetaceans Common Dolphins, Bottlenose Dolphins and Orca. Whale watching is also offered in other locations, often as eco-tours and in conjunction with dolphin watching. Land-based whale watching from New Zealand's last whaling station, which closed in 1964, is undertaken for scientific purposes, mostly by ex-whalers. Some compilations of sighting footages are available on YouTube.
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Killer whale The killer whale or orca ("Orcinus orca") is a toothed whale belonging to the oceanic dolphin family, of which it is the largest member. Killer whales have a diverse diet, although individual populations often specialize in particular types of prey. Some feed exclusively on fish, while others hunt marine mammals such as seals and dolphins. They have been known to attack baleen whale calves, and even adult whales. Killer whales are apex predators, as there is no animal that preys on them. Killer whales are considered a cosmopolitan species, and can be found in each of the world's oceans in a variety of marine environments, from Arctic and Antarctic regions to tropical seas.
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Cachalot (disambiguation) The sperm whale, or common cachalot, is a large toothed whale belonging to the order Cetacea.
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Marine Connection Marine Connection is a London, UK-based animal welfare charity working both nationally and internationally for the welfare, protection, and conservation of cetaceans: dolphins, whales and porpoises. The charity aims to achieve its objectives via various campaigns, educational and research programmes; events and press coverage. It also encourages the general public, private companies and celebrities to become involved.
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Long-beaked common dolphin The long-beaked common dolphin ("Delphinus capensis") is a species of common dolphin. It has a more restricted range than the short-beaked common dolphin ("D. delphis"). It has a disjointed range in coastal areas in tropical and warmer temperate oceans. The range includes parts of western and southern Africa, much of western South America, central California to central Mexico, coastal Peru, areas around Japan, Korea and Taiwan, and possibly near Oman. Vagrants have been recorded as far north as Vancouver Island. They live in shallow, warmer temperature waters near the coast. They also live in the tropical and subtropical regions.
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Milk shark The milk shark ("Rhizoprionodon acutus") is a species of requiem shark, and part of the family Carcharhinidae, whose common name comes from an Indian belief that consumption of its meat promotes lactation. The largest and most widely distributed member of its genus, the milk shark typically measures 1.1 m long, and can be found in coastal tropical waters throughout the eastern Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific regions. Occurring from the surface to a depth of 200 m , this species is common near beaches and in estuaries, and has been recorded swimming up rivers in Cambodia. Juveniles are known to inhabit tidal pools and seagrass meadows. The milk shark has a slender body with a long, pointed snout and large eyes, and is a nondescript gray above and white below. This shark can be distinguished from similar species in its range by the long furrows at the corners of its mouth, and seven to 15 enlarged pores just above them.
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Ngāti Maru (Hauraki) Ngāti Maru is a Māori "iwi" (tribe) of the Hauraki region of New Zealand. The stronghold of Ngāti Maru has been the Thames area. Ngāti Maru are descendants of Te Ngako, also known as Te Ngakohua, the son of Marutūāhu, after whom the tribe is named.
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Pinniped Pinnipeds ( ) (from Latin "pinna" "fin" and "pes, pedis" "foot"), commonly known as seals, are a widely distributed and diverse clade of carnivorous, fin-footed, semiaquatic marine mammals. They comprise the extant families Odobenidae (whose only living member is the walrus), Otariidae (the eared seals: sea lions and fur seals), and Phocidae (the earless seals, or true seals). There are 33 extant species of pinnipeds, and more than 50 extinct species have been described from fossils. While seals were historically thought to have descended from two ancestral lines, molecular evidence supports them as a monophyletic lineage (descended from one ancestral line). Pinnipeds belong to the order Carnivora and their closest living relatives are bears and musteloids (weasels, raccoons, skunks, and red pandas), having diverged about 50 million years ago.
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Moko (dolphin) Moko (2006 – 7 July 2010) was a male bottlenose dolphin who associated with humans on the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand from 2007 to 2010.
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Rapa shearwater The Rapa shearwater ("Puffinus myrtae"), is a rare seabird of the tropics from the family Procellariidae. It breeds on the island of Rapa in the Austral Islands of French Polynesia where it is known locally as the "kaki kaki".
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Dolphin Island (Western Australia) Dolphin Island is an island situated in the Dampier Archipelago in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. Visitors are able to camp within 100 m of the high water mark on all of the beaches on the island except for the south eastern side.
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Crabeater seal The crabeater seal ("Lobodon carcinophaga") is a true seal with a circumpolar distribution around the coast of Antarctica. They are medium- to large-sized (over 2 m in length), relatively slender and pale-colored, found primarily on the free-floating pack ice that extends seasonally out from the Antarctic coast, which they use as a platform for resting, mating, social aggregation and accessing their prey. They are by far the most abundant seal species in the world. While population estimates are uncertain, there are at least 7 million and possibly as many as 75 million individuals. This success of this species is due to its specialized predation on the abundant Antarctic krill of the Southern Ocean, for which it has uniquely adapted, sieve-like tooth structure. Indeed, its scientific name, translated as "lobe-toothed ("lobodon") crab eater ("carcinophagus")", refers specifically to the finely lobed teeth adapted to filtering their small crustacean prey. Despite its name, crabeater seals do not eat crabs. As well as being an important krill predator, the crabeater seal is an important component of the diet of leopard seals ("Hydrurga leptonyx"), which consume about 80% of all crabeater pups.
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Tonga Island Tonga Island is a small (0.15 km) island in Tasman Bay, off the northern coast of the South Island of New Zealand. It lies within the Abel Tasman National Park, about 1 km off Onetahuti Beach. The island has a flourishing fur seal colony, and is surrounded by the Tonga Island Marine Reserve, which was inaugurated in 1993.
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Big-belly seahorse The big-belly seahorse or pot-bellied seahorse, "Hippocampus abdominalis", is one of the largest seahorse species in the world with a length of up to 35 cm, and is the largest in Australia. Seahorses are members of the Syngnathidae family, and are teleost fishes. They are found in southeast Australia and New Zealand, and are listed on Appendix II of CITES.
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Marine mammal park A marine mammal park (also known as marine animal park and sometimes oceanarium) is a commercial theme park or aquarium where marine mammals such as dolphins, beluga whales and sea lions are kept within water tanks and displayed to the public in special shows. A marine mammal park is more elaborate than a dolphinarium, because it also features other marine mammals and offers additional entertainment attractions. It is thus seen as a combination of a public aquarium and an amusement park. Marine mammal parks are different from marine parks, which include natural reserves and marine wildlife sanctuaries such as coral reefs, particularly in Australia.
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List of extinct cetaceans The list of extinct cetaceans features the extinct genera and species of the order Cetacea. The cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) are descendants of land-living mammals, the even-toed ungulates. The earliest cetaceans were still hoofed-mammals. These early cetaceans became gradually better adapted for swimming than for walking on land, finally evolving into fully marine cetaceans.
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Coromandel, New Zealand Coromandel is a town on the Coromandel Harbour, on the western side of the Coromandel Peninsula, which is on the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand. It is 75 kilometres east of the city of Auckland, although the road between them, which winds around the Firth of Thames and Hauraki Gulf coasts, is 190 km long.
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Auckland Marine Rescue Centre The Auckland Marine Rescue Centre is the control centre for the Coastguard Northern Region and Surf Lifesaving Northern Region, New Zealand (responsible for the region from Paihia to Thames, including the Hauraki Gulf). It also houses other marine services such as the Harbourmaster and the Maritime Police. It is located in Mechanics Bay/Parnell, Auckland City, at the eastern end of the Ports of Auckland container terminal.
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Butterflies of New Zealand My New Zealand 🇳🇿 butterfly 🦋 The <a href="butterflies">butterflies</a> of <a href="New%20Zealand">New Zealand</a> include many <a href="endemism">endemic</a> species as well as introduced and migrant species. Lepidoptera, which includes the butterflies and moths, is the third largest insect order in New Zealand.
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Southern sleeper shark The southern sleeper shark or Whitley's sleeper shark ("Somniosus antarcticus") is a deepwater benthopelagic sleeper shark of the family Somniosidae found in the southern Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans. It is known from depths of 400 to 1,100 m. Its length is up to 4.4 m . It feeds primarily on cephalopods, especially the colossal squid, and fish; its stomach contents also less commonly contain remains of marine mammals and birds. Based on its generally sluggish nature and the speed of its prey, it is thought to be an ambush predator. A 3.6-m-long female caught off the coast of Chile had a whole southern right whale dolphin in its stomach. This dogfish is sometimes taken as bycatch in the orange roughy and Patagonian toothfish fisheries; whether this poses a threat to the species is currently unknown.
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New Guinea mangroves The New Guinea mangroves is a mangrove ecoregion that covers extensive areas of the coastline New Guinea, the large island in the western Pacific Ocean north of Australia.
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Southern fin whale The southern fin whale ("Balaenoptera physalus quoyi") is a subspecies of fin whale that lives in the Southern Ocean. At least one other subspecies of fin whale, the northern fin whale ("B. p. physalus"), exists in the northern hemisphere.