The study s findings show mergansers arrived in the New Zealand region at least seven million years ago from the Northern Hemisphere, in a separate colonisation event to that which led to the Brazilian merganser.
The Beyond Myrtle Rust research programme has an update on the unprecedented levels of myrtle rust infections found on pōhutukawa trees in Auckland during the 2022/23 summer: this past summer, in 2023/24, trees seem to have caught a break.