A. C. Harris

Fossil scale insects (Hemiptera, Coccoidea, Diaspididae) in life position on an angiosperm leaf from an early Miocene lake deposit, Otago, New Zealand

Abstract The first fossil scale insects to be described from New Zealand are 14 well‐preserved female scale covers, including nine old, mature, adult females, attached to an angiosperm leaf found in Lower Miocene finely laminated lacustrine diatomite at Foulden Hills, Otago. These insects are interpreted as belonging to Family Diaspididae, Subfamily Aspidiotinae, a group that is well‐represented in the modern Australasian fauna. Their attachment in situ on a fossil leaf (possibly from the family Elaeocarpaceae) provides an extremely rare example of a 20‐million‐year‐old plant‐animal association, and demonstrates that before the Early Miocene Aspidiotinae had a neotenic, wingless female, and its modern form of scale cover, with a fully developed, fibrous, waxy scale cover.

An Eocene larval insect fossil (Diptera:Bibionidae) from North Otago, New Zealand

Abstract A siltstone lens within Papakaio Formation of Eocene age, near Livingstone, North Otago, has yielded a single specimen of an insect that is interpreted to be a final instar march fly larva, Dilophus campbelli n. sp., close to a common extant species, Dilophus nigrostigma (Walker) (Diptera: Bibionidae). It is the first entire prePleistocene insect fossil definitely known to have been found in New Zealand. It is also the first record of a fossil bibinoid larva. Details of geological setting are given in an appendix by J. C. Aitchison, H. J. Campbell, J. D. Campbell and J. I. Raine.

Biology of Ancistrocerus gazella (Hymenoptera: Vespoidea: Eumenidae) in New Zealand

Ancistrocerus gazella(Panzer, 1798) is common in Central Otago, New Zealand. Details are provided of its typically tubular, generally multicelled nests in hollow stems, artificial trap nests, abandoned wood-boring insect galleries, cracks and holes in stone walls and old nail and bolt holes in cement, concrete and wood. After an egg is suspended by a slender thread from the roof of the cell near its inner end, 2-19 (mode =8) lightly paralysed lepidopterous larvae are placed in the cell. The cell is then sealed with a plug of moulded mud. Host species so far identified are Planotortrix octo Dugdale, Ctenopseustis obliquana (Walker), Epiphyas postvittana Walker. Eurythecta zelaea Meyrick, Hannologa amplexana (Zeller), H. sisyrana Meyrick, Harmologa sp., Crocidosema plebejana Zeller, Pyrgotis plagiatana (Walker) (all Tortricidae), an unidentified species of Gelechiidae, Epiphthora melanombra Meyrick (Gelechiidae) and Chloroclystis filata Guenee (Geometridae).

Cryptic colouration and melanism in the sand-burrowing beetle Chaerodes trachyscelides (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae)

Abstract The flightless, sand-burrowing beetle Chaerodes trachyscelides White is confined to the intertidal zone of sandy marine beaches in New Zealand. The dorsal surface varies from black to pale whitish-yellow, and most specimens closely match the colour of the sand they live on. On a beach with pale sand, about 98% of specimens are whitish on the dorsal surface, and about 1% areblack. Conversely, on a beach with black sand, about 96% are black and about 1% are whitish. The beetles live under cast-up marine algae on which they feed, and burrow beneath it in the sand. When predatory sea birds pick up such algae, invertebrates, including C. trachyscelides, fall out, run a short distance, ana burrow into the sand. I suggest that a higher proportion of beetles coloured less like the sand are eaten by seabirds, and that these predators exert differential selection (genetic or phenetic) against non-cryptically-coloured individuals. However, there is as yet no way of telling whether the genetic mechanism is t...

An early Miocene ant (subfam. Amblyoponinae) from Foulden Maar: the first fossil Hymenoptera from New Zealand

Kaulfuss, U., Harris, A.C., Conran J.G. & Lee, D.E., 2014. An early Miocene ant (subfam. Amblyoponinae) from Foulden Maar: the first fossil Hymenoptera from New Zealand. Alcheringa 38, 568–574. ISSN 0311-5518. The ant subfamily Amblyoponinae is presently represented in New Zealand by one endemic species in the cosmopolitan genus Stigmatomma and an introduced Australian species of Amblyopone. The fossil record of the group is restricted to two species of Stigmatomma from late Eocene Baltic Amber. Here, we describe the third fossil record, an Amblyopone-like specimen from the early Miocene of Otago, southern New Zealand, based on a winged male that resembles the extant A. australis Erichson in size, general habitus and characters of wing venation, but also shares features with the African amblyoponine genus Zymmer. This represents the first fossil record of Amblyoponinae from the Southern Hemisphere and the first example of Hymenoptera among the few pre-Quaternary insect fossils known from New Zealand. It suggests a long history of Amblyoponinae in New Zealand and Australia. Uwe Kaulfuss [uwe.kaulfuss@otago.ac.nz] and Daphne E. Lee [daphne.lee@otago.ac.nz], Department of Geology, University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin 9016, New Zealand; Anthony C. Harris [anthony.harris@otagomuseum.govt.nz], Otago Museum, PO Box 6202, Dunedin 9059, New Zealand; John G. Conran [john.conran@adelaide.edu.au], ACEBB & SGC, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Adelaide, Benham Bldg, DX 650 312, Adelaide SA 5005, Australia. Received 18.3.2014; revised 15.5.2014; accepted 23.5.2014.

Occurrence and nesting of the yellow oriental paper wasp, Polistes olivaceus (Hymenoptera: Vespidae), in New Zealand

A nest, founding queen, and an additional living female of the cosmopolitan yellow paper wasp, Polistes olivaceus (De Geer) are recorded from Dunedin, New Zealand.

A sclerite from a late Cretaceous moth (Insecta: Lepidoptera) from Rakaia Gorge, Canterbury, New Zealand

Abstract A second Cretaceous insect fossil known from New Zealand—the apical part of a sclerite from the abdomen of an adult lepidopterous insect—from Rakaia Gorge, Canterbury, is described. The fragment is interpreted as the broken off, apical part of the sacculus free arm of one of the paired valvae of the male genitalia of a species of Lepidoptera. Its affinities possibly lie with the subfamily Larentiinae of the family Geometridae and possibly with the genus Helastia Guenée.

A large aggregation of Peripatoides novaezealandiae (Hutton, 1876) (Onychophora: Peripatopsidae)

Abstract On 6 May 1989, Mr D.H. Randle discovered several thousand individuals of Peripatoides novaezealandiae (Hutton, 1876) on his two-hectare property at 146 Caversham Valley Road, Dunedin.

A note of recent records of Australian butterflies in New Zealand

Records of a substantial population of Cynthia kershawi on Saltwater Spit, south Westland, are presented, together with additional information on the 1984 Junonia villida calybe migration.

An American bald-faced hornet (Dolichovespula maculata; Hymenoptera: Vespidae) captured live in the Dunedin town belt

This paper records the capture of a live queen of the American bald-faced hornet in Dunedin.