Hitchhiked from Canada inside a suit case. Euthanized in the freezer.

BNZ were informed and the matter has been dealt with. If you are concerned you have seen a BMSB please call 0800 80 99 66 to report it :)

Here's a mystery plant that Hugh Wilson found in a "crack in paved footpath outside Jamie's General Store in Akaroa." "At first glance looked like a Veronica, but not. Lvs opp, toothed, softly hairy above, pale beneath, hairy along veins, stems straight (whole plant softly hairy with short straight hairs)."
Hugh found it and collected in in Oct. 2020, sketched it on 10 November, and later posted a photocopy to me to see if iNaturalist could identify it. His specimen will also be wending its way to the Allan herbarium.
Any ideas?

The most stunning (native) moth I have seen - the photos don't do it justice. The forewings were a bright blue colour and when it took off it revealed the most brilliant orange hindwings with black stripes (just visible in the second photo).

Truly amazing. I cannot stop thinking about it and wonder if anyone knows what it is... I thought perhaps Paranotoreas?

It flitted off before I could get better photos.

A single wild great willowherb growing in an empty section immediately to the west-northwest of Cathedral Square, on Worcester Street. It's fenced off private property so I couldn't access it (to kill it).

Spotted flying low in the dunes. Rested briefly. Strong northwesterly at the time of observation. Northeasterly and northerly wind the previous day. Butterfly eventually flew north-west over the beach in the direction of a headland.

Presumably wild. Single plant noted growing under a silver germander (Teucrium fruticans). Not seen in adjacent garden or indeed in any of the street side gardens in vicinity. I am more familiar with this species as a naturalised plant from the far north of Northland, where it can be locally common e.g., Kaitaia.

Voucher: P.J. de Lange 14773 & F.J.T. de Lange, UNITEC 11738

Insecta: Lepidoptera
Oecophoridae, Stathmopodinae
Stathmopoda orbiculata

Lam Tsuen San Tsuen, Tai Po, Hong Kong.

This is the second record of this small (6mm long) moth in Hong Kong

The Stathmopodinae have a very distinctive resting posture and heavily bristled legs - an unmistakeable combination!

Note that Stathmopodinae is regarded by some taxonomists as a valid family within the Gelechioidea, and was treated as such in the overview of Lepidoptera by van Nieukirken et al., 2011

The chocolate-colored underside to the hindwings is diagnostic for this rare eastern South Island species of copper butterfly. Caterpillars on Muehlenbeckia complexa. Both South Island glade copper and Canterbury Common copper are present on these roadside patches of pohuehue too.

A sooty mold on sap-sucker exudate on grapefruit leaves. Usually loosely called Capnodium citri in the literature - a name covering multiple species. In this case microscopy indicates this is actually Chaetaboliisia falcata. This is sometimes recorded on Citrus, but not in NZ before. However the species was originally described from Tanoak and so equivalence of this citrus-sooty mold component remains to be proven.

I kid you not, found 1km up Gebbies Pass Rd. Unfortunately it passed away before we collected it. I work for DOC (hence the fact it’s on the back of a truck) and was IDed by another ranger because I haven’t a clue. Oddly, not the first seal blobbing up Gebbies Pass... if not a crabeater, another ID would be awesome.

First record in NZ since 1990 according to https://www.gbif.org/occurrence/1091216932

and

https://avh.ala.org.au/occurrences/search?taxa=lathyrus%20sphaericus#tab_mapView

Stand to be corrected of course.
Amazingly the last observation was in almost exactly the same place in 1990! Must have been ticking along in this place ever since. I'll be keeping an eye out for it in the wider Port Hills area.

As far as I can tell previously unknown from the Port Hills. There were about a dozen gaps in the rock wall occupied accounting for about an eighth of the circumference of the water tank. I checked the rock walls around the perimeter of the reserve and found none. Something to keep an eye out for in the hills @jon_sullivan

Got some pics with sori @david_lyttle

Locality: NEW ZEALAND AK, Auckland 1072, suburb of Saint Johns, University of Auckland Tamaki Campus.

Habitat: Beaten from Trifolium pratense, at the margin of level 1 unsealed carpark.

Identification: Coleophora deauratella Lienig & Zeller, 1846. New to N.Z.!