Provespa wasp arrival in Queenstown, another unwanted import

In April 2017, a live Provespa nocturnal, tropical wasp species (Hymenoptera: Vespidae), that reproduces by swarming, with a natural distribution from India (East Himalayas) to Indonesia (East Java), was found in a domestic garden in Queenstown. Considering the cold winters in Queenstown and the sterile worker specimen identified, the impact would appear to be minimal. The most likely entry point into New Zealand would appear to be via luggage, equipment or the cargo hold of an aircraft arriving at Queenstown airport via Auckland or Australia from Asia

Carové\u27s Giant Dragonfly: What’s in a name?

Uropetala carovei is a species of dragonfly (Odonata) endemic to Aotearoa New Zealand. Commonly called the Bush Giant Dragonfly or Carové\u27s Giant Dragonfly, it is New Zealand’s largest dragonfly. But where does the name Carové come from, for which the dragonfly is named, both in the species name and common name? This is the tale of multiple individuals, countries and one name

Audio observation of a Wellington Tree Wētā Hemideina crassidens defence stridulation

Wellington Tree Wētā Hemideina crassidens are known to produce a stridulating sound during defence (Field 1982). No papers that I could find have presented publicly available audio files which include this sound. Here, I describe one such call, and encourage others to upload their observations to community science websites

Assessment of aquatic macroinvertebrates from Tangihua Forest, Northland, using an integrative taxonomic approach

Macroinvertebrate sampling is a widely used tool for monitoring stream ‘health’ and water quality globally and in Aotearoa New Zealand. In this study, macroinvertebrates were sampled from a Tangihua Forest stream as part of a university taxonomy course, with 26 operational taxonomic units initially identified in the field. More detailed identification using an integrative taxonomic approach (a combination of lab-based morphological work, community input (iNaturalist), and DNA barcoding (COI)) further refined this data set to a total of 19 taxa identified to genus or species level, (plus an estimated 12 additional leptophlebiid mayfly taxa that were not initially recognised as distinct) and five further taxa identified to order or family. To enable future comparative work, COI sequences have been uploaded and are publicly available on BOLD Systems (project code AMPS) and GenBank. The diversity of ‘sensitive’ taxa observed suggests moderate to high water quality and stream health at this site, despite considerable human impacts, including kauri logging in the previous century and introduced species

New Zealand’s giant springtails (Collembola: Holacanthella): now available in purple

New Zealand has a proportionately high number of endemic invertebrates, of which the ‘giant’ Collembola of the genus Holacanthella Börner, 1906 are a particularly impressive yet understudied group. Members of this genus represent the largest springtail species on Earth, and are among the most visibly striking – possessing brightly coloured dorsal digitations in a range of yellow, red, orange and white pigmentation. Species of Holacanthella are known to have restricted spatial distributions and display significant within-species variation in colour and digitation development. Here, we present the first known observation of purple digitation colouring in Holacanthella, and discuss the finding in context of known morphological variation and taxonomic uncertainties in this genus