Kiwihorizons: Insect encounter

My fieldtrip was more of a holiday trip, although the bushwacking again was super tough. But fun, mostly. The 2 most funny people from the institute had invited me: they were going to show their world famous (for soil-plant-nutrient-interaction-interested people that is) glacier field sites to an Ozzie professor (originally German) and a uni lecturer and his postdoc. Actually these two colleagues are not just funny, they should have their own comedy show.

I was just coming along to see the world famous soil-plant-etc-etc field sites and to get to know this uni lecturer and generally find out what keeps my colleagues up at night in terms of soils, plants, nutrients, and what not.

I observed amused that my colleagues view the world in terms of plants. Where Ians world is “fungi”, Sarah and Peter will entertain you during a 5 hour drive with endless repetitions of plant names and dominating plant families of the area and theories on seed dispersal and seedling establishment pre and post human settlement.
The lecturer, Jason, and his (Canadian) postdoc Shelley were more into insects (I still find it hard to believe anyone would dedicate an entire scientific life to “beasties”).

So we basically visited 9 field sites in 3 days and discussed plants and insects. The sites were all close to the (also world famous) Franz Joseph glacier and so this time I had a little bit more time to look at it from the distance and learn in much detail about the plants and insects and nutrients and everything else.

"Franz" again

It also became clear to me that I should try to describe the bush wacking, because I have done some before, but this is different.
You encounter a place like this,

and someone pulls out a GPS and a compass and you just thrush yourself into the vegetation and up the rock. There are ferns that obscure your view of the ground and ferns that grow as tall as you so you stumble over logs and roots and holes that you can’t see and get all tangled up in vines that you also usually don’t see. Leaves and branches are constantly slapping into your face and pull at your hair. Sometimes you step on a decaying log that gives away and your foot is suddenly 20 cm deep in a hole, or there is a stream or swamp that you didn’t see and with a “swoooosh” your foot is in 20 cm deep mush. You climb over logs, under logs, over the vines, under the vines, somehow through the vines. Mostly you ascend this insanely steep slope, and you try to pull yourself up from roots or tree trunks, and often the root or tree breaks or falls and you lose your balance. The GPS person shouts “200 meters more at 147 degrees!” and you wonder how come you only covered like 40 meters from the starting point after half an hour, or so it seems. You get tired and stumble even more. But at least there are no snakes, bears or scary poinsonous insects. And it is like you are the first to have ever been there.

Talking about insects, the second night I entered my bedroom and there was this pretty enourmous insect sitting on a power socket thingie looking at me with its huge feelers pointed towards me. Huuuh! I knew there are supernaturally large grasshoppers here but I had not expected one in my bedroom. I first tried to ignore it and hoped it would disappear, although I knew it was foolish to pretend because even if it did disappear it would still be under my bed or in the drawer and I wouldn’t be able to sleep. So I finally wandered over to Sarah coolly saying “Ha! There is a really interesting insect in my room!” hoping she would just scoop it up and throw it out of the window. But, of course, she looked at it and said “oh that is an endemic New Zealand hopping beastie, it’s a weta, wonder how it got in here”. So I said “aaah, cool! It’s pretty big … … … “. And the reply was “NZ has the largest grasshopper in the world, like 20 cm long! Real cool!”. Ok, so I trotted to the kitchen and sort of opened a cupboard looking for a device to capture it and wondered out loud “hmmmmm how do I get it out?!?!”. Sarah finally got the hint and asked if she should do it for me. I felt pretty silly, being out all day in the woods and then too afraid to deal with a friendly insect, but mostly relieved that I was saved. But lying in bed and listening to the murderous pounding rain outside I imagined the poor creature being wet and miserable and cold and lonely :( It did after all have a sympathetic look to it.

Well those were the largest adventures of the trip. Here are pictures.