Island insects studied

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32474, 8 December 1970, Page 3

Island insects studied

(N.Z. Press Association) NELSON, Dec. 7. The first insect study of the Three Kings Islands, off the northern tip of New Zealand, has just been completed by a team under the leadership of Dr G. Kuschel, head of the D.S.I.R. in Nelson.

Dr Kuschel and his party of seven spent three weeks on Great Island—the largest of the group discovered by Abel Tasman in 1643—surveying' the insect fauna, which contains a high proportion of species not occurring elsewhere.

Dr Kuschel said today that the Three Kings Islands were severely denuded of vegeta-

tation by goats, which were liberated on Great Island in 1889.

Although the goats were exterminated in 1946 by staff of the wildlife division of the Department of Internal Affairs, and much of the vegetation had returned by way of birds carrying seeds, most of the insects connected with the vegetation were absent.

One insect the party members were very well aware of, said Dr Kuschel, was a very large variety of centipede which carried a particularly severe and painful bite. The islands, consisting of four main land masses and a number, of rocks, some of which supported vegetation, were served by only two water sources. Because of the difficult terrain of Great Island, one of these sources was impracticable for the entomological expedition’s pur-

poses. The supply available to them was only a trickle, said Dr Kuschel, so there had been a great need for careful use of water.

while on the Three Kings, two botanists did special work on lichens and seeds, and a malacologist studied the ecology of the land arid marine snails. The party was landed on the rocky islands by H.M.N.Z.S. Kiama. In the expedition were three other entomologists in addition to Dr Kuschel: Dr G. W. Ramsay, Dr J. C. Watt and Mr J. G. R. Mcßurne'y, from the D.S.I.R. in Nelson; the superintendent of parks and reserves of Nelson City Council, Mr D. H. Leigh; an applied biochemist from the D.S.I.R. in Palmerston North, Dr D. J. Galloway, and a -malacologist from the I Dominion Museum in Wellington, Dr F. M. Climo.