ABOUT THIS BOOK

As with the other books in this series, we were tasked with choosing images to depict the animals we wanted to write about. Many species descriptions only have illustrations of key features rather than whole animals, and some orders – usually small or obscure orders such as scorpionflies (Mecoptera) – do not always have suitable illustrations. For that reason, some orders are not represented in this book.

The illustrations included in the book come from three key sources. In 1992, Des Helmore began work as an entomological illustrator for the Entomology Division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR). After the DSIR was restructured into Crown institutes, Helmore continued this work for the New Zealand Arthropod Collection, New Zealand’s largest entomology collection and part of Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research. He retired in 2006 and produced over 1000 illustrations, mostly for the Fauna of New Zealand series. These are now available on Wikimedia Commons.

Helmore’s illustration technique utilised a stereomicroscope with a drawing tube. This allows an image to be ‘seen’ on the paper, thus enabling the exact proportions of a specimen to be traced. Helmore’s drawings were typically made using Indian ink and technical drawing pens. The illustration was double or triple publication size, making an accurate portrayal easier, while imperfections were minimised in the smaller, published version.

Amateur entomologist George Vernon Hudson’s specimen collection and scientific contribution is well recognised, but he also leaves us with (to borrow the title of a book about him) an exquisite legacy of entomological art. Hudson produced all the illustrations that adorned his books, and many of these illustrations are now housed at Te Papa. According to his daughter Stella, Hudson’s paintings started as pencil sketches of one side of the specimen, traced over to produce the whole drawing on card. This was painted over with watercolours applied with an extremely fine sable brush. In contrast to Helmore, these illustrations were made at publication size. For this book, we have reproduced Hudson’s drawings in black and white with the kind permission of his family.

Ricardo Palma, entomology curator at Te Papa for forty years, is a world authority on lice. He used a compound microscope to view slidemounted louse specimens but otherwise his illustration technique is broadly similar to Helmore’s.

All the species found in this book occur in Aotearoa. The majority are endemic (i.e. are only found here), while some are native but not endemic (i.e. are found naturally in more than one country). The status of one species, the black field cricket, is uncertain. The insects are grouped in their orders, with the hemimetabolous orders preceding the holometabolous orders. (See the section on insect lifecycles for an explanation of these terms.)

Given that there are many thousands of species, we cannot cover everything in so small a volume, but we hope that we can give readers at least a hint of what makes the insects of Aotearoa so fascinating.