Also known by its Māori language names korimako, makomako and kōmako.

Anders Sparrman described the species in 1786 as Certhia melanura, but said the bird was collected at the Cape of Good Hope - exactly the same mistake he made with two other New Zealand birds - the  rifleman and piopio.

The three subspecies are the only remaining members of the genus, after the Chatham bellbird was wiped out by introduced predators and disease in the early 20th century.

Treasured for their song - Captain James Cook described its song as "like small bells most exquisitely tuned". Like other honeyeaters, violently territorial in breeding season. Their ninth primary flight feathers is modified to produce whirring sounds in flight, that they use during courtship and territorial defence.

The birds were trapped for food, but their population declined seriously after the introduction of ship rats and stoats.

AKA Buller's gull or tarāpuka. Originally described as Gavia pomare in 1855 but that name was already being used for another species. Bruchigavia melanoryncha got rejected as well because "black-billed" had ALSO already been given to another gull species. In 1871 another ornithologist proposed naming it after the New Zealand ornithologist Sir Walter Lawry Buller, but the genus got changed repeatedly anyway. 

A species found only in New Zealand, its ancestors having arrived from Australia about a quarter of a million years ago. Distinguished by its black bill and has been described as "more buoyant and graceful" flight, and "generally less noisy" than the red-billed gull.

In breeding season the species nests in dense colonies along major rivers, although they only started nesting on the North Island in the 1930s. Unfortunately introduced predators have caused a precipitous decline in the species' number over recent decades, and it is now considered the world's rarest gull.

A large genus of Water Boatmen, found in many parts of the world. Some species live in hypersaline lakes. This one was in the same pool are the Riffle Bugs.

Unusually for aquatic bugs, some Corixids are herbivorous, but many are omnivores, some are scavengers, and some are fully carnivorous.

Eggs are laid underwater on any suitable substrate.

A species of Riffle Bug endemic to Aotearoa - like the species I've found here in Australia before, tiny carnivorous bugs that live on the surface of the water and converge to devour any other insects unfortunate enough to fall in. M. macgregori is the only Veliid found in New Zealand, and comes in winged and wingless forms - the former Is most common on upland tarns.

These ones were living in a tiny stagnant pond where a stream was running into Lake Rotoiti.

First described as Attus auricomus by NZ arachnologist Arthur T. Urquhart in 1886. Who then went on to describe the same species as Plexippus capillatus, Attus suffuscus, Attus kirkii and Attus adustus. In 1917, French naturalist Raymond Comte de Dalmas described it again as Trite vafra. In 1935 American arachnologist Elizabeth Bangs Bryant realised they were all the same species.

A common Jumping Spider endemic to New Zealand. The one at the top with the blonde moustache is a male.

Smart enough to learn which prey are bad to eat after a single encounter.

A Rose Aphid parasitised by an Aphelinid wasp - such victims become bloated and black, as here. Aphids parasitised by Braconid wasps in the genus Aphidius are also bloated, but a pale brown or fawn colour.

The Aphelinidae are a moderate-sized family of tiny parasitic wasps, with about 1100 described species and some 28 genera, although it seems likely the family will be split into new families in the future. Unfortunately they're difficult to preserve and study, unless immeadiately preserved in alcohol.

Most are parasitoids of true bugs, although some attack eggs, some attack pupae, and others are hyperparasites. Males and females may have different hosts and life histories.

The oldest known fossil Aphelinids are found in Eocene amber, and some species are extremely useful biocontrol agents.

A worldwide pest of rosebushes, although winged adults may transfer to a handful of other hosts.

The aphid usually overwinters as eggs, but populations explode in spring via wingless females that reproduce parthenogenically.

Large populatins can damage the shoots and growing tips of the hostplant, and the honeydew they secrete (see the two droplets on the cornicles of the one below) is a substrate for sooty mould.

Small Lygaeid bugs endemic to New Zealand, and diverse enough that there are more in their subfamily there than there are on any other continent, at least going by a 1989 paper by AC Eyles that I dug up. Similar to and related to the Nysius species I know from Australia.