a well established weed

NAME
Senecio glaucophyllus Cheeseman

PARENT

BIOSTATUS
Endemic, present in the wild

DISTRIBUTION
northwest Nelson

HABITAT
Terrestrial

REFERENCES
Liew, C.-S. et al. 2021: Taxonomic realignment of Senecio glaucophyllus (Asteraceae; Senecioneae) necessitates a new name for a widespread New Zealand species. New Zealand journal of botany, DOI

LINKS
NZOR

@stephen_thorpe Thank you for the ID. Is there a way to separate those two species? Neither has been recorded on iNaturalistNZ in Canterbury before. I still have the specimen. I don't have it in front of me now, but from memory, it's between 1 and 2 mm long. I should be able to measure it more accurately and look for other diagnostic characters later today.

You need to examine the antennae, which they tend to tuck away behind the head. Stegobium has a distinct 3-segmented antennal club, whereas Lasioderma has a more uniformly serrated antenna.

@stephen_thorpe I've added a picture with a clearer view of an antenna. This is Stegobium, right?

Hmm, depends on if that antenna is entire or broken. How many segments before the 3 big triangular ones?

@stephen_thorpe 8

@stephen_thorpe Thank you for your help with this!

All good

Location on map is wrong! I know that area. Please fix!

Looks like a spider's refuge web.

There are some interesting colour variants in this species suffused with reds and yellows as well as the more common deep green

and showing abundant feeding on its chewed leaves of the two Threatened geometrid moths that specialise on its foliage: Declana griseata and Tatosoma agrionata. Both moths have excellent populations in Woodhaugh Gardens and other parts of north end of Dunedin City

Interesting. The wing pattern looks like Hydriomena rixata, although the colour has faded and the lack of wing fringes makes the wing look more scalloped than it usually would.

Thanks for your comment!
I'm pleased you say that as I had wondered H. rixata after seeing an observation of one a couple of weeks back, but when I compared today didn't quite look right. Your explanation about the wing fringes could explain that however.

Thank you both!

Sad to see in Abel Tasman national park

Loves poor soils, as found in ATNP.

interesting behavior in a saltmarsh habitat; I imagine larval hostplants of kowhai, gorse or tree lupin were present closeby.
It is a diurnal indigenous moth with colourful conspicuous caterpillars on kowhai and some exotic pea family species

Yes, there is tree lupin & gorse nearby as well as some Kowhai likely in gardens not too far away either. They may just have been drawn to the food source, as were the honey bees - the Samolus is flowering profusely over a large area, with some Selliera as well.

A harmless plant.

Ectomycorrhizal species. What trees around?

ok - I see pine needles

Sorry, yes should have said. Mixed exotics including, redwoods, larch, Douglas fir and pine.

That's really interesting to know! There was buttercup nearby, which I think is Ranunculaceae?

Yes you have buttercup (Ranunculus repens) in the photo, but also what could be decaying rush (Juncus) stems. Both buttercups (some of them) and rushes each have their own species of Sclerotinia. So, we will just leave this as Sclerotinia. To identify many fungi you need to note, and identify, associated plants.

Ignore the blue spray paint on him/her

Blackbird or House Sparrow

https://www.notornis.osnz.org.nz/system/files/Notornis_37_1_45.pdf

Btw I mat is obscuring the observation

@sdjbrown I don’t think the throat/neck plumage fits. Also I did find a paper that showed some releases they did in huia in the 1970’s here it is: https://www.notornis.osnz.org.nz/system/files/Notornis_37_1_45.pdf

However the last one was seen in 1985

For it to be a weka this would be the first in a long while for the area, much much smaller than usual, and unusually coloured. This is the size of a banded rail with plumage resembling one, in a location that many have been recorded.

The head and neck plumage is pretty bedraggled, which changes its appearance substantially.

The specimen is still there as far as I know. If it was a weka it would make it the first weka sighted in the area since 1985. Which would be amazing and I know the much more likely option would be the rail but to me the plumage doesn’t really fit either of the options. Which makes me think that a isolated population could have changed its plumage to fit the area maybe???

@duncanmc42

@jacqui-nz

Mate populations don't change phenotypes anywhere near that quickly. This would be the tiniest weka and had adapted to extremely closely resemble a banded rail. Occam's Razor says it is more likely to be the bird it is the size, plumage and modern habitat of, which is banded rail.
@skipperdogman @lloyd_esler

You can more clearly see the flight feathers in this photo
http://nzbirdsonline.org.nz/sites/all/files/1200309Banded%20rail%203.jpg

No horns

I'd agree, though is this in a garden @abbeypruden?

We've found that wild in places.

I'm not surprised climate-wise, more just that there weren't more records of it on the North Island yet

👍

@dave_holland we have Ichneumonid wasps dont we?

I assume this was a record of an observation that the camera failed to capture...@stoph?

Yea we do but not in that pic

Well it's not Coprosma... Hard to make IDs on this sort of pic.

Map location "Indian Ocean" could do with improvement!

If uv been to Cape foulwind ull know that is an improvement 😝

Maybe

Nah

Not sure, I saw something similar in Field Naturalists of Victoria indicating it may be the pupal case of large Rain Moth, Cossid Moth or Swift (Hepialid) Moth or from the Moth genus Abantiades where the grub lives and pupates underground, then emerges as very large moth in rainy conditions.

That would make sense!

bit immature.
Probable given the beginnings of the zonation.

Sorry. Just a photo taken in passing. On a doc track!

A pity. Are you going back there?

I’ll go back for a walk in a few days. Will let you know if I find it again. I found it in Morere DOC reserve, On the Nikau Loop track. (I live just across the road). I’m finding that it’s a pretty unexplored area of the country, even with the Reserve just there. https://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/places-to-go/east-coast/places/morere-area/things-to-do/nikau-loop-track/

Do you have a DOC permit? If so I could collect it on your behalf if you like, if that’s allowed...

No, I don't have a DOC permit. I usually only collect something that's interesting like this or operate under our FUNNZ permit. Permits though are specific to a given area rather than nationwide. Gisborne is one of the areas FUNNZ hasn't been to. Maybe we should consider it.

Sorry I didn't get back to take more pics. Life got away on me. There're some quite unusual invertebrates here, I wouldn't be surprised if the fungi were unique too. Might have something to do with it being a rainforest, and the limited taxonomic attention things get out on the east coast. Lots of cool places to stay nearby too.

It could be, I have seen a few lately that look similar but not quite.. Unfamiliar area for me.

Based on the leaves and whorls of flower buds, I expect it's a firewheel tree. Let us know what it looks like when those flowers open.

@jon_sullivan I've finally added a flowering picture... unfortunately it was too high up for a good pic.

You are right: the recommendations are to post MR observations here on iNat to monitor spread in NZ. There is a product sold at https://www.kiwicare.co.nz/problem/myrtle-rust/ but I really don't know if that provides an effective solution.

Hi thanks for posting pictures of all that nasty myrtle rust. Unfortunately your plants will be acting as a source of inoculum that could infect our native species in the Waitakere Ranges. For information about the ideal way to remove the plants, see here:
https://www.myrtlerust.org.nz/assets/Uploads/How-to-remove-infected-myrtle-plants-and-safely-dispose-of-the-waste.pdf

Epilobium nummularifolium possibly. A photo showing seed capsules would be helpful for ID purposes.

Thanks guys.

Thanks Jon, I thought it probably was.

@jon_sullivan

This one has been IDd already Mark, I should have added a link. Will do asap. It is planted here, a seedling collected from under a specimen in Eskdale Reserve Domain Rd margin, (c.200m from here) and id'd by Jon and esler

Thanks Jon.

Thanks both. Dozens of these here now, and not bad survivors of drought on the ridgetop either. Seed blowing into surrounding revegetation sites now.