Contents

COVER : A short-tailed bat gives vent to existential angst.
CONTENTS - Features :
TONGAPORUTU COASTLINE [Along the north Taranaki coast, the cliffs seem to be not a lot more stable than the ocean that erodes them]
MANUKAU HARBOUR [The country’s second largest harbour used to be a sort of open sewer for Auckland but things are looking up]
WILD THYME [A pungent herb has naturalised in Central Otago and now is the centrepiece of its own spring festival]
PLANET FINDING [Astronomers from Japan and New Zealand are collaborating to find extra-solar planets using a new telescope at Mt John in inland Canterbury]
GRAHAMSTOWN [In Thames, buildings from the gold-rush era of 130 years ago are still in good shape and being put to new uses]
BATFLY [This little gem from the biodiversity treasure chest is a flightless fly that dines on bat guano and food detritus scavenged from round the mouth and anus of its host, the short-tailed bat]
CONTENTS - Departments :
EDITORIAL; LETTERS; VIEWPOINT [The value of native plants]; GeoNEWS [Fossils, peppercress, humpbacks, lunar power, CO2]; BOOKS [The Big Show]; BLAKE TRUST; MOVIES [An Inconvenient Truth]; WEATHER [Rain radar];