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Located to the north of Auckland city, Te Hauturu-o-Toi, also known as Little Barrier Island is the home to the largest of the giant weta species, the wētāpunga (Deinacrida heteracantha). Being New Zealand's oldest nature reserve becoming protected in 1895, the island has remained free of introduced rodents.
Deinacrida heteracantha, also known as the Little Barrier giant wētā or wētāpunga (Māori: wētāpunga), [2] is a wētā in the order Orthoptera and family Anostostomatidae. It is endemic to New Zealand , where it survived only on Hauturu ( Little Barrier Island ). [ 3 ]
Deinacrida rugosa, commonly called the Cook Strait giant wētā or Stephens Island wētā, [1] is a species of insect in the family Anostostomatidae. The scientific name Deinacrida means "terrible grasshopper" and rugosa means "wrinkled".
Wētā is a loanword, from the Māori-language word wētā, which refers to this whole group of large insects; some types of wētā have a specific Māori name. [2] In New Zealand English, it is spelled either "weta" or "wētā", although the form with macrons is increasingly common in formal writing, as the Māori word weta (without macrons) instead means "filth or excrement". [3]
An adult Poor Knights giant wētā (Deinacrida fallai) from Aorangi Island, Poor Knights Island group, Northland, New Zealand. Deinacrida fallai was only described as a new species in 1950. [ 2 ] It is the second largest wētā species in the world, [ 2 ] with females weighing up to 40g and measuring up to 73mm (2.87 inches) in length. [ 5 ]
The heaviest of this widespread, varied complex of insects is the Little Barrier Island giant weta, Deinacrida heteracantha, of New Zealand; one specimen weighed 71 g (2.5 oz) and measured nearly 10 cm (3.9 in), [2] giving it one of the largest insect weights ever known. These heavyweight insects can be over 9 cm (3.5 in) long.
Described by Buller in 1896 in the genus Deinacrida. [5] Moved to the genus Hemideina by Hutton in 1900. [8] In 1978 Ramsey and Bigelow suggested H. broughi should be in its own genus [9] but phylogenetic evidence suggests the combining of the 7 Hemideina species to join the 11 Deinacrida species would remove current paraphyletic relationships of this group.
Sculpture of a Mahoenui giant wētā (Deinacrida mahoenui) on the main street of Te Kūiti, New Zealand. Female Mahoenui giant wētā lay 200–400 eggs in autumn, burying them about 25 mm deep into the soil with their ovipositor. The eggs are about 7 mm long, and take 10 months to hatch, with the 8 mm nymphs emerging in March or April.