Ruud Kleinpaste: Massive Gorgeous Moths

At this time of the year there’s only one place I’d love to be: The North Island.  

These are the largest moths in Aotearoa. They are also very nicely coloured – lots of green and yellow as well as white and orange patches. Their wingspan is up to 150mm, and they’re a noisy flyer at night.  

Females are often larger than males – they lay masses of eggs as they fly through the forest at night.  

The relatively small caterpillars hatch on the forest floor and commence eating dead wood, infected by fungal material.   

The funny thing is that these very young caterpillars only move around for 6 to 12 months, after which they move up tree trunks to find out what the wood tastes like… Once they’ve found a suitable tree with nice bark and yummy phloem and xylem, they will start to build a long-term tunnel system in which they can live 5, 6, or even 7 years.  

It’s a 7-shaped tunnel that goes into the trunk and down (yes, the shape of a 7!), and it lives there for 7 years. 

The puriri moth “homes” are always protected by a patch of silk that protects the dwelling from enemies such as centipedes and even small birds. The silk is tough enough to keep the predators out.  

Caterpillars chew on the re-growth of the Cambium at night and bit by bit, which is why it takes so long for these larvae to become “mature”.  

Once they have reached their final “instar” (size) they turn into a chrysalis (a “Pupa”) that finally becomes that huge green ghost moth that we see flying at this time of the year.  

The adult moths (which grew to that size in 7 years!) have just 24 hours (and at most to 48 hours), to do all their loving, living, and shopping. 

They look spectacular and full of protein and eggs….  

Which is why Ruru are keen on hunting these insects 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from News Talks at be.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Rude Climb Past is our man in the garden. Good morning, sir,
Good morning.

Speaker 3 (00:18):
I loved all the stories about the moons and space
and since it is great, yeah, cool.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Yeah, So, as you weren't listening, we were talking before
ten o'clock about how what is it the thirteenth of
November twenty twenty six Voyager, the spacecraft will be one
light day away from the Earth. So I think I
looked up one light day in kilometers, there's something like
twenty nine billion kilometers.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
It's a long way to walk.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Yes, yes, it's a long way to fly, as it
turns out. I mean, voids has been out there for
almost fifty years now. But there's crazy a It's yeah,
it is. It's kind of it. But yeah, I love
all that cosmological stuff. When you when you are able
to try and put the vastness of the universe or
the relative you know nothing of the Earth in the

(01:07):
context of the vastness of the universe, it's yeah, it
is extraordinary, isn't it?

Speaker 1 (01:11):
Anyway?

Speaker 2 (01:11):
Speaking of and big distances, our fifteen centimeters one hundred
and fifty mills. That is the wingspan of the moth
you're looking for at the moment.

Speaker 3 (01:23):
Poor moth. We call it the poor moth, which is
the largest moth we've got in New Zealand. It is
endemic to New Zealand. That means it only occurs in
New Zealand. In fact, it only occurs in the North Island,
nowhere else, which is an interesting thing because because if
you talk to for instance, in Tireo and you're talking

(01:45):
about the tree for instance, in which those mores really
like to live, which is not so much the poor tree. Yes,
I know, but there's one day like even better. It's
called Marblelief. And my belief has got a wonderful Maori
name called Putta Putta Wetta, and that is to do

(02:06):
with the end story of this particular moth life cycle.
And we're going to be the time to talk about it.
So here's this month at the moment. This is the
time of the year. It's actually you can see it
almost every month of the year, but November December or September,
October November. So this springtime is the time when you've
seen them, if you've got them near your place in

(02:27):
the North Island, and I remember going to Pukaha, which
is of course in the Waretta where I stayed the nights,
a couple of nights, and these things would fly, dozens
upon dozens of them all over the place, and it
was just that spectacular.

Speaker 4 (02:45):
This is the time when the females lay their eggs,
those big girls, they lay their eggs like a wounded
B fifty two bomber, And honestly, in the forest they
fly around the egan here and that's eggs, five hundred
and six hundred eggs coming.

Speaker 3 (03:03):
Out like that. And basically that's what happens to these
little babies that come out of the rbs. They spent
almost a year eating organic material from the forest floor.
That's the first thing that they do. And they do
that so sixty twelve months whatever, and basically they become
slightly bigger than a tiny caterpillar. They can be a

(03:25):
medium sized caterpillar. And once they've done that for about
six to twelve months, they climb up trees and they
start chewing the back of their favorite trees. And their
favor trees are things like what to put the weather
or marble leaf if you like, but specifically all supportingly.
And then what they do is they do something amazing.
They drill a hole into the branch of the tree,

(03:49):
into the trunk, and then down and that makes the
shape of a seven up slightly slightly up and then
down right. Those tunnels, by the way, will be at
least six inches long and three quarters of an inch wide.
And they are also making outside, on the outside a

(04:10):
patch where they eat the back of that tree, and
they put silk over the top. Right, got all that,
So seven years later, the caterpillar comes out as a
chrystalis It flies out as a big, big, really math
if you like, and the whole thing starts all over again.

(04:31):
And this is the point. If you're talking about put
put the weather as a marble leaf, as a really
good tree for this particular creature, then you'll take that name.
Put the weather, which belongs the men from which many
weather arise. And what you find is that once these

(04:51):
caterpillars have bugged off out of their seven shaped home,
if you like, tree weather will go into those trees
and use those as secondhand dwellings.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
Wow ah, it's amazing how the whole system builds on
each other, you know.

Speaker 3 (05:11):
And they all work together.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (05:15):
So when you chance tree, yes it does d amateur tree,
but it usually restores. The tree restores itself. If you've
got a very thin a thin tree, sometimes you can
get ring barking and that could cause all sorts of
troubles to the tree. But here comes a thing. So
when I came to the South Island and I talked

(05:35):
to the guys that here at the night, was saying
what about to put the weather and they said, oh
what they have no idea what that means because the
thing doesn't occur in the South Island and ohole story
does not make sense.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
Fantastic. Thank you so much, Rye, have a wonderful weekend, sir.
We will catch you again very soon.

Speaker 1 (05:57):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
to news Talks it'd be from nine am Saturday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.