#triplectides

The last NZ species I’ll be covering until the end of the year when I go over there myself and find more.

photo by @purrdence

Apart from 3 Baltic Amber fossils, the genus is found in Asia from India to Japan; in Indonesia, Papua-New Guinea, all of Australia; on South Pacific Islands including New Hebrides, New Caledonia, and obviously New Zealand; and in South and Central America. Aoteoroa has 5 species, but I don’t know which this one is.

The many species of Triplectides breed in most kinds of watercourse, including cold and warm, unpolluted to moderately polluted, permanent and temporary lakes, ponds, rivers and creeks.  The genus is ubiquitous in Australian waterways, including temporary habitats in the central deserts, and is often the most common caddisfly genus encountered in benthic surveys.

The larvae construct mobile cases usually out of plant matter, but occasionally stones or the cases of other caddisflies. The plant cases can be a hollowed length of stick, or a tubular collection of plant fragments. Their hind legs have dark bands between the leg joints.

Circling around the volcanoes we came to a very small town named after the Pepper Tree Pseudowintera colorata, a 'primitive' flowering shrub with powerful antifungal uses amongst other things. There may well have been some growing around the area, but I didn't recognise it alas.

Still, the place we stayed had some very nice stuff growing around the yard, and a geologically slightly worrying amount of boulders filling the creek. But then Ruapehu did loom at the end of the road, and it's notorious for its lahar landslides.

As previously, here's some of the species I've covered before. Some turned up when I set up an LED lamp near the wall of the house that evening.