THE NEW ZEALAND 
JOURNAL OF SCIENCE 
AND 
TECHNOLOGY. 
Vol. IV. Wellington, January, 1922. No. 6. 
SOME CHANGES IN THE FAUNA AND FLORA OF 
OTAGO IN THE LAST SIXTY YEARS.* 
By A. Bathgate. 
The changes to be dealt with are chiefly the disappearance of forms of life, 
and it would add an interest if one could ascertain the causes thereof, but, 
though these are manifest in many cases, in others they are, to me at least, 
inexplicable. Still, I shall suggest a possible cause where I can do so. I 
am unable, however, to account for the disappearance of the bats ( Mystacops 
tuberculatus) , which in 1863 and for at least ten years after were not 
uncommon flitting about in the dusk in the suburbs of Dunedin ; now they 
are almost if not quite extinct. Lizards (Lygosoma moco) were numerous 
on the open parts of the Town Belt, where grasshoppers ( Hypamola speciosa) 
absolutely swarmed. The introduction of English birds, especially the starling 
(. Sturnus vulgaris), accounts for the almost complete extinction of the latter 
throughout Otago, and the clearing of the flax ( Pkormium tenax) and scrub 
from the more open spaces of the Belt must undoubtedly have a good deal 
to do with the extirpation of the former, whilst cats and boys must have 
aided. The imported birds are also responsible for annihilation of a beetle 
of a bright malachite green (Pyronota festiva), myriads of which in summer 
almost covered the twigs of the manuka ( Leptospennum scoparium), but also 
transferred their attention to garden-plants, notably rose-bushes, which they 
considerably damaged. I have not seen a single specimen of that beetle 
for many years. On the other hand, the brown crepuscular beetles ( Odontria 
zealandicum and 0. striata ), which do damage in our gardens, and whose 
larvae are often so destructive of the roots of many plants, have, I believe, 
greatly increased in number, owing probably to the loosening of the soil 
by tillage and the introduction of many plants affording suitable food. The 
cicadas ( Melampsalta muta ), still occasionally heard, were very abundant, if 
they did not quite fill the air with their noise as I have heard them do in 
the North Island. The empty pupa-cases were often to be seen, and the v 
*rC - | fij | j j jg :-;-V- 7 |-* 
* A paper read before the Otago Institute, 14th June, 1921. 
18—Science. 
