An exotic gecko found at the Manapouri Power Station is thought to have hitched a ride in a crate with machinery from Indonesia.<\/p>\n
Meridian Energy reported finding exotic ants with equipment from the same supplier in February.<\/p>\n
Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) biosecurity surveillance and incursion manager Wendy McDonald said the single Brook’s house gecko (Hemidactylus brookii) was spotted inside the power station on April 27.<\/p>\n
McDonald said the small nocturnal lizard was a tropical species that had spread widely through human activity, and could compete with native lizards for food and shelter, if established in New Zealand.<\/p>\n
She said the gecko likely arrived with imported machinery and equipment crates from Indonesia, and would not survive in Fiordland.<\/p>\n
McDonald said the exact ant species reported by Meridian had not been identified, but they were found to belong to theTapinoma species.<\/p>\n
The species was not present in New Zealand, but was regarded as an unwanted organism.<\/p>\n
MPI staff had visited the site and notified the Department of Conservation.<\/p>\n
A Meridian spokesperson said the gecko had not been seen since the original sighting in April and it was impossible to say whether it was still alive.<\/p>\n
The small infestation of ants was discovered at the power station, when a sealed crate of equipment from Indonesia was opened earlier in the year, and was destroyed in accordance with Biosecurity New Zealand guidance.<\/p>\n
The spokesperson said staff remained on alert, and contractors and visitors were advised to report any further sightings.<\/p>\n
They said Manap\u014duri Power Station was a hard place to search, because it was a large cavernous space 200m underground at the end of a 2km tunnel.<\/p>\n
Traps had since been set throughout the station, but there had been no further sightings of either geckos or ants.<\/p>\n
As a precaution, the equipment and transport crates were treated, and bait was laid in the area.<\/p>\n
MPI has asked power station staff and others in the area to report any suspected sightings to Biosecurity New Zealand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An exotic gecko found at the Manapouri Power Station is thought to have hitched a ride in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":484207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-484206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/484207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}