14-05-2025
'My heart soared at the unmistakable sight'
Dr Frank Ashwood was spending his day doing macrophotography on the Port Hills when he made "a very exciting discovery".
After hours of overturning decaying wood and discovering native fungi and invertebrates at Kennedy's Bush for Christchurch's City Nature Challenge, Ashwood was getting ready to call it a day.
"I turned over one last log, and my heart soared at the unmistakable sight of a giant springtail,' he said.
"At only five millimetres long, it was one of the tiniest I've encountered – but big things come in small packages, and this observation has finally put Christchurch on the map for giant springtails.'
Ashwood says this find is a sign the bush is being well managed, as the endemic invertebrates are very sensitive to habitat loss and disturbance.
"This is a very exciting discovery and great news for the biodiversity value of the Port Hills area.
"I've been hoping to find giant springtails around Christchurch for a while now - having photographed them in native bush all around the South Island.
"But according to the iNaturalist distribution maps and the scientific literature, they've never been found anywhere near the city."
The genus of giant springtails are found only in New Zealand and are the largest in the world.
They are usually dark bluish-grey in colour, with distinctive brightly-coloured spine-like projections on their skin. Giant springtails are great decomposers, relying on rotting hardwood logs for food.
Ashwood's discovery was one of the 25,322 native fungi and invertebrate observations made across Christchurch and the Banks Peninsula throughout the City Nature Challenge, up on last year's 20,310.
The 10th annual global event ran from April 25-28, with a total of 3,310,131 observations from 669 cities across 62 countries.
Christchurch City Council community partnership ranger Sarah Mankelow said it was also an amazing weekend for exploring the Ōtākaro Avon River Corridor.
"Our evening event at the Climate Action Campus was a huge success with families travelling all the way from Timaru to attend," Mankelow said.
"Another highlight was the spotlight walk to the river where Jenny Bond from Te Tuna Toane facilitated a close encounter with tuna/eels."
The events included a whānau fun day at Richmond Community Garden, a science exploration of Cockayne Reserve, and a guided tour of the estuary mudflats with council ecologist Andrew Crossland.
"It was another stellar weekend with nature lovers from all across the region – we're incredibly pleased with the final results," Mankelow says.
