The First New Zealand Insects Collected on Cook's Endeavour Voyage

The Banks collection of 40 insect species, described by J. C. Fabricius in 1775, is critically examined to explore the possible methods of collection and to document changes to the insect fauna and to the original collection localities since 1769. The assemblage of species is regarded as unu sual. It includes insects that are large and colorful as well as those that are small and cryptic ; some species that were probably common were overlooked, but others that are today rare were taken. It is concluded that the Cook naturalists caught about 15 species with a butterfly net, but that the majority (all Coleoptera) were discovered in conjunction with other biological specimens, especially plants. Possible reasons for the omission of wetas, stick insects, etc., are discussed . This early collection shows that marked changes in abundance may have occurred in some species since European colonization. One new record is revealed: The cicada Notopsalta sericea (Walker) was found to be among the Fabricius specimens from New Zealand, but its description evidently had been overlooked. were generalists whose task was to collect all sort s of natural history specimens. Joseph Banks himself was primarily interested in the terrestrial flora, and none of them could be described as entomologists. However, they were equipped for catching and preserving insect specimens, and certainly retained some of the specimens they encountered . No comments about the insects were recorded in their diaries , nor were there indications of collection localities attached to the specimens. So, apart from the descriptions of Fabricius and the specimens themselves, we are left with very little documentary evidence ofmuch note . Yet the earliest assemblage of insects from New Zealand is, in fact, full of interest. It includes some unusual and unexpected species, it holds a key to the activities of the first naturalists, and it hint s at some important changes that probably have occurred since 1769. In order to consider these i examined the list of insects collected and now pose the following questions: 1. Who collected the insects, and what techniques were used for their preservation? 2. How were they collected: deliberately or inadvertently? 3. What, if anything, does the collection tell 102 I This work was supported in par t by the Int ernal Research Committee of Victoria University. Manuscript accepted I May 1988. 2 Victoria University of Wellington, Zoology Department, Private Bag, Wellington, New Zealand . THE FIRST COLLECTIONS of animals from New Zealand by naturalists on Cook's Endeavour voyage had , in most cases, to survive a varied history before becoming part of the permanent scientific record or of an institutional collection . That the insects, as a group, did somewhat better than most is a fact owed in part to their relatively easy preserva tion and in part to the industry of the Danish taxonomist J. C. Fabricius , who described them . It might also be said that the insects survived because they were largely inedible and that to some degree they had value as "collectibles," even in the eighteenth century. More detailed historical background is given in Andrews (1986). The nature of the voyage undertaken by Cook, Banks, Solander, and the others was such that in no way could it be regarded as supporting a systematic attempt at a repre_~. ~__~~ntative collection of the New Zealand insect fauna . The naturalists on board Endeavour .