Personal favourites

Courtaraneus orientalis

Courtaraneus orientalis — one of my favourite spiders, and New Zealand's largest endemic orb weaver. Angela and I had the privilege of helping write the paper that described this beautiful orb weaver as a new genus. You can view our paper here "A new genus for a large, endemic orb-weaving spider (Araneae, Araneidae) from New Zealand"

Ranoidea aurea

While Green and Golden Bell Frogs can become a pest in the wrong environment, they can also be a useful indicator of a healthy ecosystem and help keep some insect populations in check.

I love this image for how naturally the frog is framed among the sedges and grasses. It seems to be mostly the younger, smaller frogs that perch like this. Larger frogs tend to bend and move the stems under their weight, making them far less stable. That gives the younger frogs access to these elevated perches and creates some really unique poses that you don't often get to photograph.

Athoracophoridae - mating

In over 15 years of taking photos, I've only come across mating leaf-veined slugs half a dozen times, and while my other shots have captured the behaviour, they’ve never quite reached the standard I wanted in terms of lighting, framing and depth.

This time, using the Canon R5 Mark II's in-camera focus bracketing with flash, I was able to quickly fire off half a dozen frames and produce a well-lit image with good depth across both slugs, while getting close enough to keep the light soft and even.

Amphipsalta zelandica

I've been photographing cicadas moulting for almost as long as I've been taking photos — it was one of the first real “wow” moments I remember witnessing in nature. Over the years I've had the privilege of photographing a wide range of invertebrates as they moult, but every year or two I still seem to find a new personal favourite, and this is currently mine. I like it enough that I even have an A4 print framed at home.

Many cicada species emerge here in New Zealand over summer, from around mid-to-late December through to April. They often begin crawling from the ground later in the evening, and from around 10:30pm onwards you can start finding them climbing vegetation and shedding their nymphal skins.

Mangawhero Forest Walk

The Mangawhero Forest Walk, near the base of Mount Ruapehu at Ohakune, is one of those places I simply enjoy being in. The track passes through beautiful, lush native forest, with ground ferns beneath towering rimu, mataī, kahikatea and other native trees. I particularly like this straight section of track, where the forest seems to close in around you. This image captures that feeling of being completely immersed in the kind of New Zealand forest I love exploring.

Tylos neozelanicus

These small endemic coastal isopods, or slaters, are found around parts of the New Zealand coastline, often amongst native coastal vegetation such as spinifex. Face-on, I think they have a surprisingly cute little face.

This individual was photographed at 4× life-size using the Canon R5 Mark II, MP-E 65mm and Canon EL-1 flash. The EL-1’s fast recycling time let me fire off a quick focus stack before it moved, which is always the challenge with such small, active subjects.

Capturing a portrait like this is always a real joy — part technique, part timing, and part luck.

Zecicindela brevilunata

Zecicindela brevilunata has been high on my list to photograph for a long time. It’s a small endemic tiger beetle with a very restricted distribution along a relatively small section of the eastern Northland coastline, where it is a specialist of coastal sand dunes. Because of that limited range, it’s one of those species I don’t often get the chance to go looking for — Ruakākā is at least a six-hour drive from home.

Knowing where a species occurs is one thing; actually finding it amongst the hot sand and getting a photograph is something else entirely. These tiger beetles are incredibly fast and rarely stay still for more than a couple of seconds. I had photographed the species on a white background before, so finally being able to photograph one active in its natural habitat made this encounter particularly special.

Limax maximus

I've only witnessed Limax maximus mating half a dozen times. On the previous occasions, the pairs have usually been amongst flax or against tree trunks, which makes it difficult to photograph the behaviour clearly and show the full suspended display.

On this wet evening, just after rain, I was out with a couple of friends and I actually wasn't feeling particularly well. I'd even put my camera away for a while, which is extremely unusual for me. When we came across the pair, though, they were mating in a much more open position than the previous ones I'd seen, giving me the chance to photograph the entire suspended display clearly against a clean black background.

Despite how often I’m out photographing, this is still a relatively rare sight for me, and a good reminder that sometimes simply getting out for some fresh air with the camera can lead to something completely unexpected.
Leopard slugs mate in the most beautifully bizarre way – and nobody knows why"

Lasiorhynchus barbicornis

I was out photographing with a couple of friends when we came across this male Lasiorhynchus barbicornis. where it was sitting, wasn't really making a nice clean full body shot that i was wanting, so instead of just wandering past, i decided to put on the Canon MPE65x lens and try for a much tigher portrait shot, I decided to try something a little different and move in close on its eyes.

What I hadn't really appreciated until seeing it at this magnification was just how densely covered the weevil is in tiny hairs. From a normal viewing distance the long head is obviously the standout feature of a male giraffe weevil, but getting this close revealed an entirely different level of texture and detail that is very easy to overlook.

Much to my surprise, the photograph went on to become one of my most popular images on Instagram, receiving over 6,000 likes. I certainly wasn't expecting that when I took the photo. I was simply trying to find a different way of photographing a species I'd photographed plenty of times before.

Macarostola miniella

Macarostola miniella holds a special place for me. This small New Zealand endemic is one of our most strikingly coloured moths, with vivid pink and yellow markings that make it surprisingly easy to spot at night as it flutters between leaves. It is closely tied to swamp maire (Syzygium maire), the only host plant it is known to use. On one memorable evening there were dozens around us, with several landing on our cameras and one even choosing Angela’s nose as a resting place.

Sadly, the swamp maire at the few places where I could reliably find this moth has now been heavily affected by myrtle rust. That close relationship with its host, and the possibility that this beautiful little moth could disappear within our lifetime, is one of the reasons Angela and I make the effort to see and photograph it whenever we can. A couple of years ago, we put together a short write up about what we were seeing, which you can read here.

Peraxilla sp

Tūī

Gliophorus viridis

Aurora over

Hygrocybe sp

Dolomedes dondalei

Sidymella angularis

Geodorcus helmsi

Zecicindela brevilunata

Neocicindela spilleri

Male New Zealand Fernbird

Thambotricha Vates

Zealaranea trinotata

Welcome swallow

Island robin

Thelymitra nervosa

Pseudocalliprason marginatum

_MG_5759E

Sidymella angularis

Lycaena sp

Allotrochosina schauinslandi

Arthropodium sp

Peripatoides sympatrica

Vanessa itea

Angela McQuillan with a copper butterfly on her hand

Ooperipatellus viridimaculatus

Porrhothele antipodiana

Cormocephalus westwoodi huttoni

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Dew reflection

Hemideina thoracica

Ranoidea aurea

Opisthoncus polyphemus

Caterpillars of – IMG_2813E

Mokopirirakau granulatus

Opodiphthera eucalypti

Xanthocnemis zealandica

Peripatoides sympatrica

Naultinus tuberculatus

Latrodectus katipo

Spelungula cavernicola

Dolomedes minor

Kākā

Cambridgea plagiata

This image is special to me because it was chosen for the front cover of my very first book, A Photographic Guide to Spiders of New Zealand, co-authored with Cor Vink

Mosquito sucking blood

Morning Dew