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Purple-coloured digitations, either a new colour morph of H. brevispinosa, or a new cryptic species.

Three such coloured springtails were encountered (two adults of approx. 6 mm length, and one juvenile approx. 4 mm in length). The specimens possessed a dense covering of two different lengths of apically rounded dorsal digitations: the longer ones purple and shorter ones yellow/orange, with a row of lighter/white digitations on either side of the dorsal midline of each segment, running the full length of the animal. No well-developed digitations were present on the antennae, although a small, raised patch of pigmentation featured on antennal segments I and II in the adults. Based on the morphological features visible from the photographs taken (with the exception of the purple digitation colour), the species are at present considered a loose match for Holacanthella brevispinosa using the identification key of Stevens et al. (2007). However, this identification requires confirmation through proper investigation of a collected specimen (none were collected at the time due to lack of permit for invertebrate sampling on NZ Department of Conservation land).

Observation report: https://weta.ento.org.nz/index.php/weta/article/view/429