Youth Creature Feature [October 2025]
An endangered moth named after a blockbuster flick is now threatened by long-fought mining activity on conservation land.
By Jasmine Starr
Picture a vast, isolated ecosystem. A windy wilderness covered in giant invertebrates and tiny plants, filled with expansive landscapes of rock and bush and crystal-clear pools. A land covered in ancient plants and creatures, and species seen nowhere else in the world. This is the Denniston Plateau, home to the infamous Avatar moth (Arctesthes avatar).
The Avatar moth looks perennially perched on its tiptoes, with all the frazzled grace of a googly-eyed pipe cleaner. Its sharply elbowed legs jut up to a thick, fuzzy abdomen, surrounded by glorious sunset-gold hindwings. Discovered in 2012 in a Forest & Bird Bioblitz, this moth is a brand-new addition to Aotearoa’s insect pantheon. With a miniscule wingspan of 2 centimetres, it's a wonder this creature was ever found at all.
An Avatar moth, being its beautiful self. Art Credit: Magnolia Wild Design
While this moth isn’t speckled blue, or secretly operated by a human, it is named directly after James Cameron’s films. The Avatar moth’s discovery was overshadowed by a 2012 proposed mining operation that would annihilate the plateau and all its creatures. Just like in Avatar, an overseas company run by greed—Bathurst Resources—was clamoring for its demise. But through conservationists’ actions and activism, we managed to save this isolated world.
But now, with the Fast-track Act reviving old battles, we must fight for Denniston one more time.
Just over a decade after its discovery, the Avatar moth perches, golden wings a-waving, at ‘Nationally Critical’ - the lowest rung of the conservation ladder, barely above ‘extinct’. Both populations live within one hectare—and this is the land Bathurst Resources is attempting to mine. If this fast-tracked plan goes ahead, their proposed open-cast pit will turn Denniston Plateau’s unique ecosystem into yet another hole. If we do nothing, the Avatar moth—and creatures we haven’t yet discovered—will disappear forever.
This article is not just a Creature Feature. It’s a plea for our land in a moth-eaten trench coat.
Sorry to lure you with a creature feature, but I promise, this article is still entertaining
This awkward, gangly insect is the poster child of our movement, but it’s far from the only cool creature under threat. If you love strange-coloured geckos, snails, fernbirds, giant weta, incredibly tiny plants, ancient trees, peripatus, spotted kiwi, fossils, aquatic moss or even cool rocks, please, help us prevent Denniston’s destruction.
May’s creature feature discussed another mining project, threatening our incredible native Archey’s Frog. Revived and fast-tracked mines across the motu are the current greatest threat to Aotearoa’s wildlife. But we are not the villains in Avatar. We will not prioritise a company’s temporary economic benefit over a gorgeous misty world of golden moths.
The path forward is simple. Join the call for no mining on conservation or stewardship land.
If you fill out a few details, Forest & Bird will contact politicians of your choice on your behalf. I timed myself doing it: it took 16 seconds. You can also add a personal message, which can be very cathartic.
You can also sign our petition to make Denniston a scientific reserve, which would protect it from further exploitation and save 1,700 rugby fields' worth of unique biodiversity on the plateau.
Join the movement with our allies 350 Aotearoa, Greenpeace, and Coal Action Network Aotearoa (CANA). Credit: Adam Currie.
We beat this mining operation in 2012, and we can beat it again. Write to your MPs. Show up at their offices—it’s their job to listen. Stick up posters, plan a protest, make the biggest noise you can muster. The public can sway the government’s actions if we are loud enough. Let them know Kiwis will not stand for the destruction of our land and our taonga, for the sinking of our economy and tourism industry, to help a corporation profit overseas.
Will we let Bathurst Resources destroy Pandora? Or will we don a blue skinsuit, hop on a hair-controlled dragon, and put a stop to this stoppable tragedy?
Youth Creature Feature is your monthly dose of Aotearoa New Zealand's wacky, whimsical, and wonderful native and endemic species.
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Contact: Forest & Bird Youth Editors