Landhoppers – tiny, jumping crustaceans – are a vital yet often overlooked part of Aotearoa New Zealand’s invertebrate fauna. Northland entomologist Olly Ball, University College Cork’s amphipod expert Alan Myers and Te Papa geneticist Lara Shepherd have just described a new species and genus of landhopper from Manawatāwhi Three Kings Islands in Northland.
A hidden world of diversity
New Zealand boasts an astonishing variety of landhopper species, yet many remain undescribed. In our recently-published paper we describe a new endemic species and genus of landhopper from Manawatāwhi Three Kings Islands. This archipelago has had a long history of isolation and is a biodiversity hotspot home to a number of endemic plants and animals.
This landhopper first caught our attention a decade ago when Olly visited the Manaaki Whenua invertebrate collections. While combing through specimens collected during a 2008 survey of Manawatāwhi/Three Kings Islands, he stumbled upon a hopper unlike any he’d seen before. He wrote in an email at the time:
“Crazy news: We seem to have an alien hopper. By alien I mean something off the charts evolutionarily. It is SO DIFFERENT that it does not conform to NZ hopper-ology thus far.”
Now, after years of investigation, this so-called “alien” has finally been formally named.
Introducing Manawataawhiorchestia uruone
“Manawatāwhi” comes from the te reo Māori name of the islands, while “orchestia” (derived from the Greek word orchesis, meaning “dance”) nods to the hoppers’ energetic movements.
The species name uruone was gifted by Jerry Norman and Wayne Petera of Ngāti Kuri, symbolising the transition from sand to land, embodying the heartbeat of Manawatāwhi. It highlights the delicate balance between ecosystems and the importance of safeguarding biodiversity:
“Ora Taiao, oranga tangata (when the environment is pristine, human potential is endless).”
Reshaping our understanding of New Zealand landhoppers
Until recently, all of New Zealand’s landhoppers were believed to belong to a single family, Makawidae. However, this newly described species belongs to Talitridae, making it only the second known genus from this family in New Zealand.
And the discoveries don’t end here – at least 12 more genera and 47 new species of New Zealand landhoppers await description. As our research team continues this important work, we’ll be shedding light on the hidden biodiversity that makes New Zealand’s ecosystems so unique.
Stay tuned!
Reference
Myers, A.A., Ball, O.J.-P. & Shepherd, L.D. (2025) A new landhopper, Manawataawhiorchestia uruone gen. nov., sp. nov. (Amphipoda: Talitroidea: Talitridae) from Manawatāwhi/Three Kings Islands, New Zealand. Zootaxa, 5637 (2), 363–373. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5637.2.9
This is an excellent addition to the knowledge of these islands and provides further support for the contention by Lucy Cranwell (1962) that the systematic relationships of the endemic plants of these islands were inconsistent with their origin as chance waifs and strays from the New Zealand mainland, and that a relictual origin needed to be considered.