r/NewZealandWildlife

Pretty sure a young one as it spent a good couple of mins on the bit of flax calling out above the cliffs.

Nugget Point Lighthouse. The Catlins.

This one was sitting in the trees above Wildbase Recovery at the Esplanade, hoping we'd leave the cages open for him. Fat chance.

Edit: Answered! Grey house spider. She has a temporary accommodation in an old cherry tomato container and will be released into the garage where she won't go on a midnight walk and fall in a colander under a dripping tap!

Was previously living on the handle of my kitchen green waste bin, has a nice web there. Never got a good pic before but was happy to let her live (assuming a girl) as she was quite good against any insects trying to sneak in the window.

Found her in the colander in the sink, which has a drip. Have moved colander and new friend(?) on top of the green waste bin to let her move on when she felt like it.

I hope she is friendly, she does a good job with the bugs and is pretty!

Endemic to the Canterbury region of Aotearoa is Megadromus antarcticus, a large and mighty carabid with an iridescent green on the edges of its carapace. These beetles rush through the undergrowth and grass and grabs whatever it can with its large jaws.

Like a lot of other carabids, M. antarcticus is a generalist predator that eats a large variety of prey, and are especially excellent hunters of soft-bodied invertebrates like worms and slugs.

I am very fond of these beetles, seeing one is very exciting!

Can somebody please confirm this species of frog. Not seen one like this before. Maybe southern bell frog, also known as the growling grass frog in Australia, Ranoidea raniformis. But the skin is so smoothe. Thanks

DV stat - RNZ

#007stewingatmosphere

Good afternoon

I'm in Dunedin and I was just doing some cleaning. There is an old set of draws in the hallway and it's up against wall. On one side between the gap in wall and side of drawers there was some big paper bags form supermarkets and other old stuff and very dusty

One bag that had dust all over had some webs and at least 3 of these types of spiders. The others I had to throw out as said online. It's got a very round bulbous back. That is black to brown. It's hard to tell but it seems to have slight white marks. On Google it says it's likely not very dangerous. Is it a false widow or what?!! We don't have many poison spiders in NZ of course and Dunedin isn't overly known for this. Sorry if photo not the best. Please help identify lool ..

The Kotuku is back!

A little back story, my grandad died at the start of 2023 and I didn't know there was one that came back to ferrymead.

Every time I thought of him, I'd see the same Kotuku.

It comes back each year in time for his birthday.

I don't see it every day. But I do see it every time I think about him.

It's so special being able to see such beautiful birds and others like the grey heron and kotare in the estuary and reserve.

The title is “Roots”.

It’s based on the idea that we are inseparable from nature because we are part of it, and acceptance of that encourages harmony with the innumerable other beings we might impact. The sleeping woman is inspired by Papatūānuku and other ‘earth mothers’ like Gaia. I have no whakapapa Māori so I kept it broad to avoid appropriating ideas and motifs that I might not know the full meaning of.

List of species is in the second slide. I’m open to corrections on the Māori names - I did my best to research but I’m not fluent. The central trees are all natives too, based on Dave Gunson’s native trees poster.

My Instagram is @wroughtivy (that’s why the watermark is ivy leaves) if you want to check out more of my stuff :) Everything is hand drawn and I don’t use AI.

its missing half of two of its legs as well, poor fella

From Zealandia Te Māra a Tāne this week

Hello!

I was at Piha last week and just happened across a local volunteer who was installing mesh fencing that penguins can pass through but dogs cannot, and signs in the areas where I saw penguins and dog tracks etc

Hopefully this will be enough to protect them.

He said that they had tried to extend the no dogs area to other parts of the beach but were unsuccessful at a local government level.