Landhoppers are an important, but often overlooked, component of our invertebrate fauna. Northland entomologists Olly Ball and Steve Pohe teamed up with Te Papa geneticist Lara Shepherd and University College Cork’s amphipod expert Alan Myers to summarise the current knowledge of New Zealand’s landhoppers. Their new paper shows that landhoppers are far more diverse than we thought, with many new species hiding right under our feet.
Landhoppers – tiny acrobatic ‘prawns’ of the forest floor
Landhoppers are small crustaceans that live in the leaf litter on the forest floor. They are nature’s recyclers, playing an important role in the decomposition of leaf litter.
Before our study, 28 species of native landhopper in 17 genera were recognised from New Zealand (three of these species were described by us in 2017). All our native landhoppers were considered to belong to a single family (Makawidae), which is also found in New Caledonia, Lord Howe Island and Tasmania.
A close look reveals hidden diversity
Using morphology and DNA sequences we found that New Zealand landhoppers are far more diverse than currently recognised. Our results suggest that:
- There are at least 48 undescribed native landhopper species in addition to the 28 currently-recognised species.
- There are thirteen undescribed genera of native landhopper.
- There are native landhopper species that belong to the Talitridae and Arcitalitridae families. This means that three families of native landhoppers occur in New Zealand, rather than just one.
Landhoppers are not distributed evenly across New Zealand. The Nelson, Fiordland and Northland regions, particularly Te Paki, are especially species rich.
The work goes on (and on and on and on…)
While our review paper is now published, our work has only just begun! Some of the new species and genera are ready for us to name but others require more work.
Many of the new species are part of species complexes – groups of species that look very similar, which is why they have been overlooked until now. Untangling these species complexes will require additional fieldwork and analyses to determine how to reliably distinguish the species within them.
Our study is another example of there being still much to discover about New Zealand’s wildlife, particularly our small invertebrates.
