Caring for the environment, Things to do, Waterways  |  5h ago

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Ant enthusiast Patrick Rayen is busy preparing to take hundreds of the tiny insects on a nocturnal adventure as part of this year’s City Nature Challenge.

The challenge, running from 24 to 27 April, is an annual, four-day global "bioblitz" where cities compete to document plant, animal, and fungi species using the iNaturalist app. This is the eighth year Christchurch has taken part to help connect residents with nature and gather data on local urban biodiversity.

Patrick, 11, is taking at least four of his ant farms to the challenge’s Evening Adventures event, where people will be able to see them being fed. Species will include parrot ants, big headed ants, Suchier's meat ant and the white footed house ant.

“I first started becoming interested in ants about five years ago after watching some videos on YouTube. Then I noticed them crawling around in the garden at home and started trying to identify them using the iNaturalist app.”

Now he wants to be an entomologist and always carries test tubes when he is out and about, just in case he comes across a species he doesn’t already have.

His most exciting discovery so far was being the first person to identify the Sydney mono ant in the South Island, in August last year.

“The species is now listed in the New Zealand Arthropod Collection, with his name as finding it,” says Sandra, Patrick’s proud mum.

Members of the public are invited to Avonside’s Climate Action Campus and the surrounding red zone lands to see Patrick’s ants and find out what biodiversity they can discover at night-time. Scientists and experts will be on hand to help identify what’s found.

Other fun activities arranged for the Evening Adventure include rock painting, light traps being set up to catch night flyers, a tour of the butterfly gardens and a scavenger hunt.

Christchurch residents have really got behind previous challenges. In 2024, there was a large-scale collaborative effort to put Ōtautahi on the biodiversity international map. Over 20,000 observations saw Christchurch place 26 out of 690 cities, beating Los Angeles, Melbourne and Wellington.

Last year the number of observations rose to more than 25,000, placing Christchurch 27 out of 669 cities, with a grand total of 3.3 million observations made worldwide.