Student Haylee Denham shares what happened with Biology 201 students spending the day at Zealandia in Wellington.

When we went to Zealandia we learnt quite a lot about the adaptations of takahe, and the reasoning behind New Zealand having so many unique birds. 

We were taken around the sanctuary and got to investigate the birds we saw, we looked at their different adaptations, for example we spent a bit of time looking at the kaka birds who are very intelligent and had learnt how to get their food by mimicking what people were showing them. 

Our guide took us about the sanctuary and showed us the tuatara handed down by the iwi, he explained the effects of soil heat associated with determining the gender of tuatara. 

We gathered a lot of information on takahe, although we weren’t able to see them in person, we investigated their feces to work out their diet and the reasoning. 

It was really fun to be able to experience some of the different wild life that New Zealand inhabits.