City lights, harbor views, Sky Tower glow 💚🌃 Auckland never misses 📸
Read more: https://flip.it/6XCGif
#travel #oceania #newzealand #nz #nztravel #auckland #wanderlust
#nz
It rained, a lot, today in Ōtautahi-Christchurch city, NZ. The ducks and black swans didn't seem to mind though. They were some of the species I counted on my wet bike commute.
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/339008698
Join the call to invest in renewable energy NOT Luxon’s batshit new fossil gas LNG terminal👇
PETITION 📝
https://action.greenpeace.org.nz/petition/clean-energy-future-stop-new-fossil-gas?utm_source=nickofnz&utm_medium=nickofnz #nz #NewZealand #renewables #nzpol
RE: https://mastodon.social/@greenpeace/116079706573839128
Applies to New Zealand #NZ and the latest idiotic gas terminal project
Volcano crater on the Tongariro Alpine crossing, NZ, 2025
For the third in my hat-trick of exciting NZ Lepidoptera news stories, here is an observation over Christmas of a Mokarakare · Rauparaha's Copper (Lycaena rauparaha). It's likely the first seen anywhere in or between Lincoln and Christchurch in over a century.
Rauparaha's Copper butterfly was described as a species back in 1877 by Christchurch lawyer and lepidopterist R. W. Fereday (there's a career combination you don't often see these days). He collected specimens in Kaiapoi and Fendalton, Christchurch city, in 1866 and 1867.
The butterfly still can be common in coastal areas further north in NZ, but it's been very rarely seen anywhere in mid-Canterbury over the past 100 years.
There was great excitement in 2014 when Chris Morse uploaded to iNaturalist some photos he'd taken in 2004 of Rauparaha's Coppers along a muehlenbeckia-lined farm hedge in Irwell, Canterbury. Since then, there have been several sightings of the butterfly around Irwell, but never to the north.
That is, until Christmas Eve 2025, when Will Frost photographed this one in his garden between Lincoln and Prebbleton.
Hopefully it's the beginning of a gradual expansion back into its home territory.
Photo CC-BY-NC Will Frost.
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/333646061
#butterflies #Lepidoptera #nz #CitizenScience #iNaturalist #iNaturalistNZ #entomology
What dickheads. I've just fallen foul of this directive. I sent a Xmas card to an editor at the business' street address in Auckland - and it's just bounced back all the way to Melbourne because I didn't send it their PO box instead. Seems very petty, and against the "The mail must get through" spirit.
NZ Post to return mail with no private bag address https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360549372/nz-post-return-mail-no-private-bag-address
Lego @hpcchris is ready for the kick off of #MulticoreWorld 2026 in Christchurch #NZ
In just under an hour (2.30pm local time), @sundogplanets will be discussing her specialist field, space junk, satellites etc, with Jesse Mulligan on #RNZ
Link to listen live at the top right of this programme page:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/20260216
*Bascantis sirenica* is back!!
Last week Wellington-based naturalist Christopher Stephens found and photographed this small, dark purple moth with two pale spots. Christopher found it in the Tararua Ranges.
The species has not been seen since 1944! NZ's professional moth taxonomist Robert Hoare had feared it might be extinct. This is only the 7th time, ever, that this pretty little day-flying moth has been recorded.
*Bascantis sirenica* is a NZ endemic species and the only species in a NZ endemic genus. Welcome back!
There's still so much to learn about NZ moths.
The photo is CC-BY-SA by Christopher Stephens.
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/337727454
#mothodon #moths #lepidoptera #entomology #nz #discovery #iNaturalist #inaturalistNZ #CitizenScience
Introducing *Austramathes coelacantha*!
I uploaded this moth to iNaturalist from my moth lighting last month in the NZ mountains. It's now the first iNat record of this NZ endemic moth, which was first described as a species in 2017.
This adds to the five records of the species on GBIF from the NZ Arthropod Collection (four specimens from 1975 and one from 2023).
It's known (so far) from shrublands and beech forests of central and eastern South Island. Its caterpillars have not been confirmed yet, although they're expected to be on *Melicytus* (mahoe and relatives).
Big thanks go to NZ moth expert Neville Hudson for identifying this. Neville has so far made 171,359(!) species identifications on iNaturalist, almost all moths, and all done for free. It's an extraordinary contribution to our knowledge of NZ moths.
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/338636198
#mothodon #moths #Lepidoptera #nz #iNaturalist #iNaturalistNZ #GBIF #entomology #CitizenScience
Love insects?
It's the last day to vote for #nz #bugoftheyear
Fuck these organisations putting up prices all the time. 1.86 billion in profits over 6 months to December 2025. This is up by 600 million over the same period in 2024.
Dolphins, blue water and snowy mountains at Kaikōura, NZ, 2025
The high winds have broken a lot of our tomato plants. It's torn them right off the stakes.
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