Pollinating insects and other animals are the heroes of our November stamp issue. The stamps were developed in partnership with subject expert Dr David Pattemore and illustrator Giselle Clarkson, with a final flourish added by NZ Post designer Nick Jarvie. The project took shape following a Radio New Zealand interview with Dr Pattemore when he shed light on our uniquely New Zealand pollinating creatures, including native bats. To represent the many thousands of native New Zealand pollinators, we chose to feature the kawakawa looper moth, the ngāro huruhuru native bee, the flower longhorn beetle and the large hoverfly on the stamps, with the koramiko/bellbird and pekapeka/lesser short-tailed bat making an appearance on other stamp products and gifts. On pollinators, Dr Pattemore wrote:

Pollination is the crucial process in plant reproduction, where pollen grains are deposited on and fertilise a receptive flower and this leads to the production of seed. Not all plants need to be pollinated to proliferate, but most plant populations rely on pollination in order to persist, because pollination adds a crucial benefit in mixing up genes to give plants a greater resilience to changing conditions.

Some pollinating agents are not living things. For example, most conifers use wind to blow huge clouds of pollen from one tree to the next. Mostly, plants rely on animals – insects, birds, bats and reptiles among others – to move pollen from flower to flower, and plants recruit their pollinators through a dizzying array of techniques, from providing rewards such as food (nutritious pollen and sugary nectar) or a cozy place to lay eggs to deception by pretending to be mates.

Bees are hugely important pollinators, and intricately linked with the evolution of flowering plants. There are well over 20,000 bee species in the world, the European honey bee being just one of them. Our nearest neighbour, Australia, has more than 1,500 native species of bees, while here in Aotearoa New Zealand we have fewer than 30.

Even though we have just a few bee species, our native bees are important pollinators. They can be spotted most often on mānuka flowers early in the flowering season. They’re smaller than honey bees and can be a shiny black or covered with white or golden hairs. Unlike the introduced honey bees and bumble bees, our native bees are solitary; they don’t live in large colonies. Each female bee creates her own nest, often in the ground, where she lays several eggs and stores food for her young to feed on as they develop. Native bees have short lives, with some adults active in the environment for only weeks or a couple of months. But don’t be fooled by their small size and short active season; peaks in adult activity line up with the flowering periods of many native plants that rely on them for pollination.

What we may be lacking in bees, we make up for in an abundance of moths. There are probably more than 2,000 species of native moths in Aotearoa New Zealand, ranging in size from the palm-sized, emerald green puriri moths to the tiniest micro moths with wingspans of just three millimetres. Many moths visit flowers and can be abundant pollinators, especially at night.

In addition to our wealth of moths, beetles and flies are important groups of insect pollinators in Aotearoa New Zealand. Many fly species seek out flowers for food, moving their pollen between plants. These are not the common drab house flies; our pollinating flies can be large or tiny, bright green or magenta or handsomely striped, fluffy or shiny. In fact flies can sometimes be better pollinators than bees because they move around haphazardly between flowers, whereas bees are on a mission for an efficient collection of pollen and nectar. The haphazard movements of flies can be excellent in mixing pollen in the flowers of multiple plants of the same species.

One of the most common beetles seen on flowers is the appropriately named flower longhorn beetle. These small beetles can come in metallic blue or deep red, with both sporting bright yellow dots on their backs. They are commonly seen on flowers, including many hebe species, in spring and summer. While they are common visitors to flowers, we’re still not sure about their importance as pollinators, mainly because they seem to be quite sedentary, rather than moving frequently between different plants as bees and flies do.

These unique native pollinating insects, together with our spectacular native birds like bellbirds and tui, the enigmatic short-tailed bat, and even geckos, have helped to shape the special mix of colours and smells that characterise the ngāhere (forest). The flowers we love, like kōwhai, hebe, rātā and flax, have evolved to appeal to our rather unusual collection of pollinators.