Elachista antipodensis

This species was first described by John S. Dugdale in 1971.^[2][3] Dugdale originally believed it to be a subspecies of Irenicodes galatheae and named it Irenicodes galatheae antipodensis.^[2] In 1977 Ernst Christian Traugott-Olsen and Ebbe Nielsen confirmed that the genus Irenicodes was synonymised with Elachista.^[4] In 1999 Lauri Kaila raised this subspecies to species rank.^[5] The justification for this change was given in 2019 and was based on the differences in male genitalia between E. galatheae and E. antipodensis.^[1] The male holotype specimen, collected on Antipodes Island, is held in the New Zealand Arthropod Collection.^[3]

This species is endemic to New Zealand and is found on the Antipodes Islands.^[6][2]