Philpott likely collected the holotype specimen at the New River Estuary, the same area where the Sandy Point population was discovered in 1981; then in 1984, a second population was found at Tiwai Point, far away from the entrance to Bluff Harbour on the southern coast of the South Island of New Zealand.
Alfred Philpott (15 December 1870  24 July 1930) was a New Zealand museum curator, entomologist and writer. He became the first person to describe Zelleria maculata in 1930. Peraxilla tetrapetala, or red mistletoe, is a parasitic plant in the family Loranthaceae, endemic to New Zealand and found on both the North and South Islands. Asaphodes frivola, also known as the remuremu looper moth or Foveaux looper moth, is a species of moth in the family Geometridae with flightless females. Philpott likely collected the holotype specimen at the New River Estuary, at the mouths of the Waihopai and Oreti Rivers, the same area where the Sandy Point population was discovered in 1981. In 1984 a second population was found at Tiwai Point near Bluff, and 10 males and 5 females were collected there in a 2011 survey. 
