One of Aotearoa’s most eye-catching creatures — Written by Te Korowai o Waiheke Team Member

As the recently appointed ‘bug guy’ (also ‘bird guy’) in the office, it is not uncommon to come back from the field and find a dead creature sitting on my desk to identify.

Most people might take great offence to this, but I am very grateful that my peers are able to share my strange passions. On this particular occasion, a large huhu beetle had been left, apparently dead…or so we thought. I picked her up for a photo and alas, bugs that are dead do not wriggle their legs and try to bite you. She was clearly sick or in the final stages of life, so I decided I would take care of her until it was her time to go.

Huhu beetles are one of Aotearoa’s most eye-catching creatures. To hold one in your hand would take up most of your palm with an intricately patterned brown shell and long antennae. If you do for some reason end up holding one, likely it won’t be for long as they can deliver a nasty nip, followed by their angry screeches of “let me go!”. Adult huhu beetles only live for two weeks. During that time, all they do is mate and fly haphazardly through the night, they don’t even eat! The grubs, on the other hand, spend two years underground in rotten logs, munching away getting fat before they hatch, or are eaten by an opportunistic hiker.

I took my feeble huhu beetle home to find a quiet spot and photograph her impressive shell when suddenly something long and skinny seemed to probe its way out from the rear of her abdomen. This was beginning to feel like some real alien type stuff, but then the realisation of what it was hit me. Oh man, she’s pregnant. The long tube was her ovipositor, searching for a safe place to lay her eggs. I took her out to the perfect spot and dug a little den to keep her away from hungry hedgehogs. When I returned in the morning she was gone, but to my amazement, she had left behind a bundle of small white eggs. It will be years before they see the surface, but I am so grateful to have been able to watch over such an intimate part of life’s cycle.

- Written and captured by Field Team Technician Charlie Thomas