Living Fossils in Our Forest: What Peripatus tell us about a healthy ngāhere

Some of the most significant life on our whenua does not sing, bloom, or soar. It moves quietly, slowly, and largely unseen. 

During the Rapid Biodiversity Assessment (BioRAP) undertaken across Whāngārā Farms, a key element in developing our Biodiversity Strategy as part of our 100-year Masterplan He Rau Ake Ake, Biodiversity ecologists identified a rare and remarkable inhabitant within one of our forest remnants: peripatus, commonly known as velvet worms. These small, soft-bodied invertebrates are seldom encountered and are of exceptional scientific interest. From an evolutionary perspective, they are regarded as “living fossils”, representing an ancient lineage that bridges early segmented worms and modern insects. 

They have been around hundreds of millions years meaning their presence connects our ngahere of today to a deep ecological past stretching back over 500 million years. 

Peripatus live within damp leaf litter, beneath rotting logs, and inside the shaded microhabitats of intact forest. They emerge at night to hunt small invertebrates and are acutely sensitive to environmental change. Where forests are opened, dried, compacted, or heavily browsed, they disappear.  But we have them, and our commitment to biodiversity restoration and regeneration will ensure they will continue to be part of a thriving ecosystem. 

As Ecologist Roger MacGibbon explains in his biodiversity work across our farms, peripatus are powerful indicators of ecological integrity. They require cool, shaded conditions, stable moisture, deep leaf litter, and minimal disturbance. They are among the first species to vanish when forest systems become fragmented or degraded. When they remain, it signals that a forest still holds its internal structure and function. 

Finding peripatus on our whenua is not simply interesting. It is diagnostic. 

It tells us that within landscapes shaped by generations of farming, there are still places where ancient forest processes endure. Beneath canopy and bark, within soil and shadow, are organisms whose survival depends on continuity. These species have endured climate shifts and geological change. What threatens them now is not time, but pressure. 

This is where  He Rau Ake Ake, our 100-Year Whenua Optimisation Plan, becomes more than a strategy. It becomes a responsibility. 

Peripatus do not recolonise quickly. They do not disperse across open land. They cannot simply return once habitat is lost. Their survival depends on us holding and strengthening the conditions they require: protecting forest remnants, reducing browsing pressure, maintaining shade and moisture, and allowing the layered architecture of ngahere to rebuild. 

The BioRAP revealed a consistent pattern across our farms. In unfenced bush remnants, understorey vegetation has been reduced to seedlings and saplings repeatedly browsed before they can mature. Leaf litter is thin. Ground cover is disturbed. The microhabitats that peripatus rely on are compromised. 

Where forest is protected, the conditions change. 

Shade deepens. Moisture is retained. Leaf litter accumulates. Fungi, invertebrates, seedlings, and soil organisms re-establish. The forest regains its internal complexity. These are the environments in which species such as peripatus can persist. 

This is why fencing, pest management, weed control and long-term forest protection and regeneration are not secondary considerations within He Rau Ake Ake. They are a foundational priority. 

For whānau, the story of peripatus offers a broader understanding of taonga. Not all treasures are visible from a distance. Some exist beneath our feet, in the dark, in the quiet. Their value is not aesthetic. It is relational. They remind us that the whenua holds layers of life we do not always see, but for which we are responsible, and what we need for a thriving taiao. 

For partners and funders, peripatus provide something equally important: a measure of ecological quality. Their presence indicates that restoration is not starting from zero. There is existing integrity to protect and build upon. It demonstrates that parts of these systems still function as forests, not simply as stands of trees. 

He Rau Ake Ake is designed for species like this. It is built on the understanding that ecological systems operate over long timescales. That some outcomes cannot be accelerated. That success is measured not only in what appears quickly, but in what endures quietly. 

The forests of Whāngārā do not need to become pristine, they need to become functional. They need to hold shade, moisture, and structure. They need to support layered regeneration. They need to sustain not only birds and trees, but the unseen networks of soil organisms, fungi, and invertebrates that make forests resilient. 

Peripatus are part of that network. Their survival depends on the same actions that support birds, bats, lizards, and plants: protecting remnants, reducing pressure, reconnecting habitats, and allowing time to do its work. 

In a world that often rewards speed and scale, these creatures remind us that endurance is another form of strength. They have persisted because their environments to an extent have too. We need to build on this endurance.  Our task is to ensure that the future still contains places where such life can continue.  It will be part of our monitoring and evidence collection that we are getting it right! 

When we protect a forest remnant, when we fence a gully, when we allow leaf litter to build and shade to deepen, we are not only restoring what is visible. We are safeguarding what is ancient. 

In the quiet of our ngahere, living fossils are telling us something important: 

This land still remembers how to be whole. Our responsibility is to ensure it continues to do so.