Australeuma jeekeli Golovatch, 1986

(Order Chordeumatida, family Metopidiotrichidae)

First collected at Tarraleah and on Mt Wellington by V.V. Hickman in the 1950s, this widespread eastern species rarely grows longer than 10 mm. It is sometimes locally abundant but can be hard to find by hand-sampling. However, it is readily pitfall-trapped, and pitfall data from native forest show a strong peak in surface activity for A. jeekeli in early summer (Mesibov 2000: 22). All-gray forms (no contrasting colour on paranota) seem to be most common at the extremities of the A. jeekeli range, but the colour forms have not yet been carefully mapped.

A. jeekeli occurs in a wide range of forest habitats from sea level to ca. 1000 m. It survives clearfelling and burning of wet forest (Mesibov 1997b) and is found in Pinus radiata plantations (Bonham et al. 2002).

Click here for gonopod details.

Localities for A. jeekeli. The offshore southern record is for DeWitt Island. Scale bar = 100 km.
For an interactive map with more up-to-date localities, go to the mapper page.

More information:
 
Taxonomy - Golovatch (1986), Shear & Mesibov (1997)
Distribution, conservation and general - Mesibov et al. (1995), Mesibov (1997b), Mesibov (1998a), Mesibov (2000), Bonham et al. (2002)