#TeamTadpoleShrimp (Kouraura wai)!!!! I also voted for Otago alpine cockroach and Waitomo cave weta #invertebrates @mossworm.bsky.social

Few individuals have had such a colossal & deleterious impact on the cultural psyche as the recently-departed Erich von Däniken. While he was not alone in fusing aliens into our conception of the distant human past, he was perhaps the most successful & the most harmful in doing so.

Gastrodia sp. - leafless orchids that parasitise fungi. Manapouri, on the edge of Fiordland

Apologies for the lack of updates on the NZ trip, we had no internet for the better half of a week there (nor milk within 70km) and then the internet connection on Rakiura was ABYSMAL. Also now still seasick since Foveaux Strait has heavy swell coming from two directions. Ugh.

Let’s just assume @tkingfisher.com has already seen this and save ourselves some time.

Rakiura Kiwi taking advantage of mowed areas and enough rain to soften the ground

iNaturalist observation #10000 - a ridonkulously huge fern on Rakiura / Stewart Island. Those fronds are over 4m long.

*crashes into bed at 1:30AM after a late night kiwi-watching trek and being chased around the sand dunes at 20kph by an irate sealion*

Aotearoa Roadkill Bingo - Possum, hedgehog, rabbit, wallaby, swamp harrier, stoat, sheep, swamp hen, sparrow, magpie. Three guesses how many are native

Another harvestman with completely ridiculous chelicerae - Pantopsalis sp, on the side of the house where we're staying near Curio Bay, NZ

Just making sure that 2025 is definitely over

Bushy Point, the first time I've been on a shingle beach. Bonus Wet Doggo and birbs.

And this was the first time I've seen a karst landscape not completely overgrown, too. I suppose I have the sheep to thank for that. Elephant Rocks, another Waitaki Whitestone Geopark site. Or possibly a nursery for Narguns.

Another landform to tick off - the Earthquakes graben, one of the Waitaki Whitestone Geopark sites, where a large section of the hillside went for a wander, and opened up a chasm promptly filled with chunks of more of it.

The Moeraki Boulders, interesting concretion being weathered out of seacliffs north of Dunedin. Purrdence, I, and some friends of ours stopped here for lunch and geology on our way up to Oamaru.

Forsteropsalis sp. probably, although Shelob inconstans (yes, named after the daughter of Ungoliant, but this was in the Nicols Creek gorge not Cirith Ungol) is quite similar. Either way I'm sure the ladies will be very impressed by his chelicerae.

another robot highlight for 2025: man wearing humanoid mocap suit kicks himself in the balls

Not stars! These are a tiny fraction of the Arachnocampa luminosa glow-worms on the Nicole Creek Mountain Bike Track a few minutes from the middle of Dunedin. So many! So bright! You could even see them glowing on the other side of the river!

It remains slightly disconcerting to be somewhere at the height of summer that isn't scorched or on fire. (Woodhaugh Forest, Dunedin)

Merry Mieridduryn! #paleoart #opabinia

I bought my wife an O. Henry book for Christmas and it turns out she just sold her eyes.

Merry Christmas from Dunedin and this Currant Clearwing Moth Synanthedon tipuliformis (Fam. SESIIDAE)

Christchurch to Dunedin, with detour to the Banks Peninsula, 15myo intraplate shield volcanoes that eventually got added to the mainland. The Ōnawe Peninsula there in the middle is a volcanic plug inside Akaroa Harbour - a peninsula inside a peninsula

Welp, I never expected to have lunch a meter away from a Titan Arum, AKA Corpse Flower

A few more landforms seen while flying from Auckland to Christchurch - Farewell Spit, a 30km spit at the northern tip of South Island formed from quartz ground off the Southern Alps. Protected Seabird habitat.

Second leg to Christchurch complete! Have already seen some insects but since I was going past them on an escalator I only had time to ID them to family - Geometridae, Muscidae, and Psychodidae

Have arrived in Aotearoa! Weather is blissfully cold and I got a glimpse of Rangitoto Island, one of the ridiculous number of volcanoes under Auckland. Rangitoto is the youngest, having last erupted in c.1500CE.

SEASON'S GREASONS

if tumblr dies I need this video to make it's seasonal rotation here instead just in case, Happy holidays 🎄

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8030898... #3415 - Cantharidus lepidus A small Trochid endemic to the Western Australian coastline. Penguin Island, Perth.

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8030878... #3414 - Ctena sp. A cosmopolitan genus of Lucinid clam.

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8030859... #3413 - Hiatula biradiata - Double-rayed Sunset Clam

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8030820... #3412 - Cardita crassicosta - Large-ribbed Cardita Less weathered shells are much rougher, and may be brown, red, or yellow.

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8030762... #3411 - Scutellastra laticostata - Giant Limpet An enormous limpet endemic to the WA coastline. Penguin island, Perth.

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8030609... #3410 - Tamarix sp. - Tamarisk There are three species of Tamarisk in Australia - Athel pine (Tamarix aphylla), Tamarisk (T ramosissima) and Smallflower tamarisk (T parviflora).

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8030590... #3409 - Grevillea vestita Widespread in the coastal sandplains of SW WA, in red or yellow sand, around granite and limestone. It grows to over 4m in height, and the flowers are white or cream and sometimes pinkish.

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8030224... #3408 - Sterna dougallii - Roseate Tern Named after Dr Peter McDougall (1777–1814), Scottish physician, who noticed that some of the terns on the Great Cumbrae in the Firth of Clyde seemed different to the usual, & encouraged his friends to blast more out the sky.

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8030185... #3407 - Guichenotia sarotes photo by Bob Goodale. Another species of Guichenotia from the Wongan Wildflower Walk!

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8030166... #3406 - Guichenotia impudica A couple more plants from lasty year’s BioBlitz in Wongan Hills, that I’d managed to misidentify. This e.g., I’d originally thought was the small-flowered Guichenotia micrantha. I’ve changed the photo on the post about that species.

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8029914... #3405 - Colobopsis sp. - Gate-keeper Ants Also known as Exploding Ants, from those species that can fatally burst their own gaster to release alarm pheremones.

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8029703... #3404 - Sixalix sp. Probably Sweet Scabious (Sixalix atropurpurea). AKA Scabiosa atropurpurea, mourningbride, mournful widow, and pincushion flower.

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8029645... #3403 - Johnrenia sp. A genus of Blattellid cockroaches with at least 36 species, mostly found in Australia, with one on Norfolk Island, and two recorded from Papua New Guinea.

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8029626... #3402 - Kobonga umbrimargo - Orange Clicker First described in 1858 by English entomologist Francis Walker as Cicada umbrimargo. Hopefully not one of the many species he mistakenly described twice.

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8029606... #3401 - Grevillea crithmifolia Another Grevillea that some absolute lunatic decided would make a good kerbside plant. Google AI claims it has a sweet fragrance. This a damnable lie. What it actually smells like is a swimming pool full of chlorine and semen.

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8029587... #3400 - Grevillea leucopteris - White-plumed Grevillea One of the other Grevillea species that for some reason I haven’t blogged about before.

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8029279... #3399 - Crinia insignifera - Squelching Froglet Named in reference to the Eastern state species Crinia signifera, when breeding experiments in 1952 proved they weren’t the same species.

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8029260... #3398 - Selagis peroni Tiny Jewel Beetles endemic to the Swan Coastal Plain. The genus is currently under revision, however. Baldivis, Perth.

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8029066... #3397 - Holocnemus pluchei - Marbled Cellar Spider A Pholcid spider originally native to the Mediterranean Basin, introduced to the NW US in the mid 1900s, and now widely distributed in North and South America, and southern Australia.

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8028989... #3396 - Prionyx globosus A grasshopper-hunter with silvery fuzz, found over much of Australia. Uranquinty, 2013, NSW