About the Author

Steve Trewick is an evolutionary biologist living in Palmerston North where he works at Massey University. He was born in India, grew up in Nigeria and went to secondary school in Surrey, England. After receiving a BSc Honours degree in Ecology at Loughborough University he travelled and worked widely before settling in New Zealand. He has a PhD from Victoria University of Wellington where he studied the evolution of flightlessness in birds. Steve is an active tertiary lecturer, researcher and science communicator who also contributes to primary and secondary school and conservation groups. His popular science articles include 'Kakapo: the paradoxical parrot' (Nature Australia), 'Vicars and Vagrants' (Australasian Science), and with Mary Morgan-Richards 'New Zealand Biology' (Encyclopedia of Islands University of California Press) and 'New Zealand Stick Insects' (Reed). He has also contributed to Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Mary Morgan-Richards is a biologist and associate professor at Massey University Palmerston North. After completing her PhD at Victoria University of Wellington she undertook research at St Andrews University, UK before receiving a Marsden Grant to study weta hybrid zones at Otago University NZ. After her first child was born she worked part-time as a post-doctoral fellow, first at the Natural History Museum of London then the University of Canterbury. She now has a permanent academic position within the Ecology group at Massey University where she teaches evolution and conservation and shares her love of New Zealand invertebrates.