Invertebrates

This caddisfly is only known from two Northland streams. Found in clean cool waters flowing in kauri forest - it is quite possible that it may be found in other freshwater seeps or headwaters. Enthusiasts will need a microscope to discover more populations.

This caddisfly is only known from Divide Creek in Fiordland. There is a high possibility that it is present in other Fiordland stream seepages. It is hoped that enthusiasts will discover it in more locations. 

Now known from only two windswept beaches near Invercargill, without conservation management the Foveaux looper moth would very likely become extinct within the next 10-30 years. 

Fieldwork is urgently needed to confirm its host plant, so that specific conservation actions, such as habitat enhancement, can be implemented. 

Only known from a few scattered dry sites in Central Otago and the Mackenzie Basin, it feeds on the fuzzweed herb, Vittadinia australis, itself rare and endemic to New Zealand. Protecting the fuzzweed moth requires protecting fuzzweed sites.

A day-active moth with a distinctive fast and erratic flying pattern - anyone interested could help locate this species. It may also be possible to breed fuzzweed moths on fuzzweed plants grown in pots in a garden, in a similar way that monarch butterflies can be raised. 

This pale and delicate mayfly is only known from one small and remote stream at North Cape. Experts suspect it could be adapted to the location’s serpentine rock streams and endemic to them. 

Little is known about this distinctive species, and further survey of North Cape streams by an experienced aquatic entomologist is needed.

Known from only one beachfront location, and with a wildly fluctuating population, this unnamed jumping moth is lucky to have a local community group helping to protect it.

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Locals and other beach users are helping protect this, and several other endemic species, by guiding 4-wheel-driving away from native vegetation. 

Only one of these nationally critical cave dwellers has been found. Its small eyes are indicative of a life spent in almost complete darkness.  

Conservation measures needed are similar to those used for protecting the Nelson cave spider (Spelungula cavernicola). 

This pimelea moth is only known from Cape Turnagain, in Hawke's Bay, where it inhabits a coastal turf community, which is a Critically Endangered ecosystem. The native daphnes (Pimelea species) that they feed on are rare at this site.

The Cape Turnagain pimelea moth is a Geometrid moth that belongs to the Notoreas perornata species complex, a group of eight similar-looking moths. It is closely related to a pimelea moth found at nearby Castle Point.

The moth Orocrambus fugitivellus is only known from one seasonally wet grassland site of several hectares in the eastern Mackenzie Basin. Here they can be locally abundant in late summer, inhabiting native and exotic grasses and sedges.
 

Unusually, this habitat can be inundated with water in early spring-summer, and then extremely dry by the time the adult moths emerge. No one knows how the moth survives being covered in water for months at a time. 

Potamopyrgus acus is only known from one location in the Waikato, where it was discovered in 1981 but hasn't been seen since. The factsheet details what to look for and where to search to help us locate this species.

This tiny freshwater snail is only known from one stream in Wadestown, Wellington. It is hoped that surveys will discover populations in other streams. Snails in the genus Potamopyrgus are usually found on woody debris, stones and leaf litter in freshwater streams in New Zealand and South-East Australia. 

You can help by searching for this snail in un-channelised and shaded parts of streams in and around Wadestown.