Sport in New Zealand Sport in New Zealand Sport in New Zealand largely reflects its British colonial heritage, with some of the most popular sports being rugby union, rugby league, cricket, football (soccer), basketball and netball which are primarily played in Commonwealth countries. New Zealand is a small nation but has enjoyed success in many sports, notably rugby union (considered the national sport), rugby league, cricket (considered the national summer sport), America's Cup sailing, world championship and Olympics events and motorsport and softball. Other popular sports include squash, golf, hockey, tennis, cycling, rowing, and a variety of water sports, particularly sailing and surf sports.
Gaston de Saporta was a supporter of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and showed the transformation of plant species in different eras. He corresponded with Darwin. In 1877, Darwin wrote a supportive letter to Saporta which stated that "your idea that dicotyledonous plants were not developed in force until sucking insects had been evolved seems to me a splendid one." He wrote many books about botany from the 1860s to the 1890s. He became a member of the French Academy of Sciences. Moreover, he often visited the National Museum of Natural History in Paris to attend conferences, and paved the way for the