Curiously Annotated Creatures 

Xanthocryptus novozealandicus

Xanthocryptus novozealandicus

It has spots, it has stripes, it’s monochrome but multicoloured, and it is hard not to be dazzled by this flamboyant flying wasp as it dances about flicking its antennae in search of beetle grubs for its young to eat.

Native to Aotearoa, Australia, and New Guinea this ichneumonid wasp is a parasite of wood-boring beetles. Its common name, the ‘lemon tree borer parasite’, describes its preference for laying eggs into the grubs of the lemon tree borer beetle Oemona hirta which is also native to New Zealand. The needle-like ovipositor at the end of the wasp’s abdomen is hard and sharp enough to drill right through the wood of a tree before reaching the unsuspecting grub within.

Dicyrtoma saundersi

Dicyrtoma saundersi

These creatures are called springtails or collembola, both names refer to their amazing defensive strategy which is to leap away when threatened. They launch high up in the air by using their ‘tails’ which sit along their undersides and releases like a coiled spring. Although tiny (often a millimetre or less) in size they are often incredibly brightly coloured. Springtails can live almost anywhere, but are commonly found living in leaf litter. They play an important ecological role in the decomposition of organic matter and are often used as an indicator of soil pollution. For these reasons and many more, Canterbury Museum entomologists decided to officially back this incredible arthropod for Bug of the Year 2024. This yearly contest aims to highlight a tiny portion of some of our most important fauna in Aotearoa. 

Coelostomidia zealandica

Coelostomidia zealandica

Have you ever come across these strange looking floury gnocchi in the forest? They can be found crawling on tree trunks and the forest floor. Meet the great giant scale insect, Coelostomidia zealandica, a sap-feeding insect which excretes sugar-rich honeydew. This sweet snack is an incredibly important sugar resource for New Zealand’s endemic gecko populations, especially in isolated island ecosystems. It is also a food resource for birds and insects. Whilst the females are curvaceous chonkers covered in a dusty white wax, the males are teeny tiny and only live for a couple of days. The males’ only goal in that time is to a find a female and mate. 

Diplocrepis puniceus

Diplocrepis puniceus

This cute wee fish, measuring only about 10 cm long and called the orange clingfish, lives in shallow coastal waters around Aotearoa. They can be patterned in a variable range of spots and stripes and, even though their name refers to the colour orange, they can vary widely in shade from green and brown to yellow, red, and even lilac. The second part of their name tells of how they cling to the underside of rocks using a disc like a suction cup. From here they prey on a range of even smaller fishes and invertebrates using their surprisingly large teeth. Females lay their eggs in a nest under rocks, which are then guarded by a male until they hatch about three weeks later. This particular specimen was collected in Canterbury and donated to the Museum in 1898 by Miss Moodie.

Heterothyone ocnoides

Heterothyone ocnoides

A fun find in the wet store during the Museum move was a native species of sea cucumber, Heterothyone ocnoides. Sea cucumbers, although they don’t look it, are closely related to starfish and sea urchins. Most look like garden cucumbers, but Aotearoa has several U-shaped species. They are found along the coast from the middle of the North Island all the way down to Otago. An account from 1898 by Arthur Dendy, who worked at Canterbury College as Professor of Biology for a time, describes how “shovelfuls” of this creature could be collected from New Brighton beach after they were washed ashore during a storm. This peculiar creature was chosen by Curator Natural History Rebecca Le Grice for World Ocean Day.