The very hungry caterpillar
Southland’s most non-existent island is Emerald Island, first reported by the captain of the Emerald in 1821.
It graced charts for many years but despite being described as having high peaks it has not been seen again.
Either it was an impressive cloud, a trick of the light or a massive iceberg.
It is only one of 15 nonexistent southern islands that were once charted.
Emerald Island was located at 57°30S 162°12E which is 735km southwest of Campbell Island and 1000km north of the Balleny Islands.
The only other islands at this latitude are the South Sandwich Islands in the Atlantic. A search by the Wilkes 1840 United States Exploring Expedition found nothing and vessels sailing in the reported vicinity of the island maintained a careful lookout as recently as 1910.
Had Emerald Island existed it would have extended New Zealand’s exclusive economic zone by 39,000 square kilometres. The island would have had a permanent icecap and a large population of King penguins and Elephant seals with the only vegetation being grasses and moss.
This map taken from a 1910 gazetteer still shows the island.
In reference to the article on December 6 about Milford Sound, Jack Churchill’s grandmother came to Milford Sound with Elizabeth Sutherland as a maid. She was Meta Miller and had worked for Elizabeth in Dunedin. She married one of the Milford guides, John Ross, the man who had made the last sighting of the Takahe in 1898 before its rediscovery in 1948. She and John shifted to Te Anau and John and his brother Donald built the Tawera, which was launched on Lake Te Anau in 1899. Her original name was to be ‘Donald Ross’.
In reference to the marine pest Undaria (February 21), the attempt to remove it from Fiordland has been abandoned but there are still measures in place to prevent its spread, including a maximum duration of 48 hours mooring in the control area, no ropes or cray pots to be transported out of the area and dive gear to be treated and dried before being used outside the control area.
In reference to the story about the beer strike (February 28), Ken Bowie worked as barman in the Railway Hotel in Otautau at the time.
He says, ‘‘When the miners started boycotting the Ohai and Nightcaps pubs, they began travelling by bus down to the Railway Hotel, Otautau.
‘‘Week nights began turning over more money than the average Friday or Saturday and there were occasional disputes over the pool table between the miners and the shearing gang that also frequented the pub.
‘‘The miners had to drink about 10 jugs in order to justify the return bus fare – about 50c – in reduced beer prices. Ohai and Nightcaps became divided between those who drank locally and those who boycotted. Families didn’t talk to each other and if a local shopowner drank in the local pub, the miners [in some cases] would boycott his shop.
‘‘Not all citizens were happy with this as the publicans were very community conscious and popular, but the union strength and their misguided principles ruled the day.’’ This rather gruesome photo tells a picture story that doesn’t make good reading if the end result is supposed to be a magpie moth.
Here resting on a ragwort twig is a magpie moth caterpillar. Children often the call them ‘‘woolly bears’’.
This magpie moth caterpillar is just about full size. After hatching it would have started feeding and at the time of the photo was probably ending its caterpillar life.
At about this time disaster would have struck the magpie moth at the top of the photo.
A parasite wasp would have landed on the caterpillar and laid eggs under its skin. The larvae take over the food supply. When developed they would have emerged from the caterpillar and formed wasp cocoons on its skin enabling them to infect other ‘‘woolly bears’’.
This was not what farmers and others wanted. Biological control was meant to control ragwort.
But the parasite wasp interrupted the process.