Invader

After a nightmare journey yesterday, we are on our annual trip to New Zealand (except this is 2014's trip, just a little bit late). Don't talk to me about Qantas, broken bits of plane or 8 hour delays... we got here eventually (now I remember why I usually fly Emirates...)

This is not one of NZ's estimated 2000 to 3000 species of native wasp, but an invader. An Asian Paper Wasp (Polistes chinensis), which arrived in 1979 and is now prolific in the North Island. There are only 28 varieties of native bee though, compared to Australia's 1500 plus.

Apologies if the quality of this image is not up to scratch - I am using my rather cheap little netbook and the screen is rubbish and I find it hard to judge the quality of the images on it.