Maungatua, known also as Maukaatua is a prominent ridge in the

Taieri Plains The Taieri Plain (also referred to in the plural as the Taieri Plains) is an area of fertile agricultural land to the southwest of Dunedin, in Otago, New Zealand. The plain covers an area of some 300 square kilometres, with a maximum extent of 3 ...

Otago Otago (, ; mi, Ōtākou ) is a region of New Zealand located in the southern half of the South Island administered by the Otago Regional Council. It has an area of approximately , making it the country's second largest local government reg ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

. It rises 895 metres above the

floodplain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river which stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls, and which experiences flooding during periods of high discharge.Goudi ...

of the

Taieri River The Taieri River is the fourth-longest river in New Zealand and is in Otago in the South Island. Rising in the Lammerlaw Range, it initially flows north, then east around the Rock and Pillar range before turning southeast, reaching the sea sou ...

, directly to the west of

Dunedin Dunedin ( ; mi, Ōtepoti) is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from , the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Th ...

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surface ...

Momona Momona is a small town on the Taieri Plain in New Zealand's South Island. Momona School was established in 1899 and closed in 2004. The Henley Co-operative Dairy Company, established in nearby Henley, moved their cheese factory here, and was ...

. It can be clearly seen from much of Dunedin's urban area, 35 kilometres to the east, and from as far south as the outskirts of Balclutha, 65 kilometres to the southwest.

Lake Mahinerangi Lake Mahinerangi is a lake formed when a dam was built on the Waipori River for hydroelectricity, hydroelectric generation. The lake is to the west of Dunedin in New Zealand's South Island. Construction of the dam started in 1903 and since 1907, ...

is located on the western side of Maungatua. The name Maungatua comes from the

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...

words ''Maunga-atua'', meaning "Hill of the spirits".

Ecology of Maungatua

Maungatua features a diverse range of plant species. The summit features tussock grassland and cushion bogs, whilst the sub-alpine zone includes shrubland and tussock grasslands. Carnivorous

insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs ...

eating plants called

sundew ''Drosera'', which is commonly known as the sundews, is one of the largest genera of carnivorous plants, with at least 194 species. 2 volumes. These members of the family Droseraceae lure, capture, and digest insects using stalked mucilaginous ...

s are found within swamps at the summit.

Silver beech ''Nothofagus menziesii'', commonly known as silver beech ( mi, tawhai, tahina), is a tree of the southern beech family endemic to New Zealand. Its common name probably comes from the fact that its bark is whitish in colour, particularly in younge ...

dominates the montane slopes, particularly on the southern face. This transitions to lowland podocarp forest which extends into the Waipori Gorge. This includes a mixture of broadleaf and kānuka forest. In addition, the only naturally-occurring

kāmahi ''Weinmannia racemosa'', commonly called kāmahi, is an evergreen small shrub to medium-sized tree of the family Cunoniaceae. It is the most abundant forest tree in New Zealand, occurring in lowland, montane, and subalpine forests and shrubland ...

in the Dunedin area are found in the southern Maungatua in Mill Creek.

Glowworm Glowworm or glow-worm is the common name for various groups of insect larvae and adult larviform females that glow through bioluminescence. They include the European common glow-worm and other members of the Lampyridae, but bioluminescence also o ...

s may also be found living in mānuka trees at the base of Maungatua.

References

Mountains of Otago {{Otago-geo-stub