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Research about Wētā as good indicator species.

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Research about Wētā as good indicator species.

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New Zealand has more than 70 species of wētā, from small ground wētā to wētā that can be heavier than a mouse! Wētā have been around since the time of the dinosaurs and only exist in New Zealand.

Many wētā species are now endangered, so it's very important we look after them.

A wētā motel will help protect them from being eaten by introduced predators like rats, stoats, cats and hedgehogs. Female wētā lay 100-300 eggs so if you build a home they like, their numbers will grow.

Download this activtiy
Build a wētā motel (PDF, 464K)
What you need

Small log

Material for motel roof (plastic or iron)

Saw, chisel and drill

String or wire to hang up your motel
Nails and hammer

An adult to give you a hand

What to do

1. Explore your backyard

Explore your garden and see if you have some wētā already. Find out what kind of wētā you have, or what kind of wētā like to live in your area.

Think about what would make a great wētā home - this will help you work out where to put your wētā motel.

Saw a small log in half

Chisel out the wētā gallery

Drill a hole for the entrance tunnel

A completed 3 star wētā motel

2. Build the wētā motel

3 star wētā motel

A 3 star wētā motel is simple and fun to make.

Start with a small log and saw it in half.

Chisel out some rooms, and drill an entrance tunnel.

Nail or bind the two halves together and nail on a roof.

Hang or tie the motel in a tree in a shady spot at about eye level.

5 star wētā motel

Use the 5 star wētā motel design (PDF, 232K) to create a 10 unit 'motel' in your garden for wētā. It's great but takes longer to make than the 3 star model.

It was designed by Victoria University of Wellington entomologist Professor George Gibbs, who has given permission for the Department of Conservation to distribute it.

3. Be patient

In the forest wētā move in within three months. After a year they have about four wētā in each motel.

Handy hints for making wētā motels

Use willow and aged pine (rather than fresh pine), but make sure it's not rotting.

Make entrance tunnel holes 18 mm or slightly smaller to stop mice (10 mm is too small).

Make entrance tunnels quite long. and sloping down from the top or the side (not from underneath),

Make windows from perspex or plastic from a bottle with shutters that can be closed. Make them removable for cleaning.

Wētā prefer motels without windows, but will live in motels with windows as long as their gallery is deep.

You'll probably get more wētā if you have more single room motels.

Claim your Kiwi Guardians Habitat Creator medal

Kiwi Guardians medal for building a wētā motel

Tell us if there are any wētā in your backyard and about the wētā motel you've built, and we'll send you Kiwi Guardians Habitat Creator medal.

What did your motel look like?

How did you build it?

Has anything moved in yet?

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New Zealand has more than 70 species of wētā, from small ground wētā to wētā that can be heavier than a mouse! Wētā have been around since the time of the dinosaurs and only exist in New Zealand. Many wētā species are now endangered, so it's very important we look after them.

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Learning unit leading to action around making wēt motels.

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In this unit students will find out how the wētā evolved, why it's threatened and how we are protecting this ancient insect. Students will see why the wētā is unique, assess recovery plans and find out how to improve living conditions for wētā in their own backyard.

It links to websites, videos and learning tools which provide practical activities to develop your students' knowledge and skill.

About the resource

Learning levels

Topics

Native animals

Forests and green spaces

Curriculum learning areas

Science (Living world)

Education for Sustainablility

Achievement objectives

Students will explain how living things are suited to their particular habitat and how they respond to environmental changes both natural and human induced.

Students will appreciate that some living things in New Zealand are quite different from living things in other areas of the world.

Learning outcomes

Students will sort factors on a T chart that show why weta have survived for so long and factors which are leading to their demise.

Students will research and publish concise information in a bio-box that shows why the giant weta is so unique.

Students will discuss and consider alternatives for successful recovery plans.

Students will devise and publish a recovery plan for the giant weta that has good chance of success.

View the resource

DOC and TVNZ collaborated to create this resource "NZ Biology: The big friendly giants - the giant wētā" which was written by DOC ranger Mike Tapp.
Contents of resource:
1. What's an insect?

Here's a quick activity to check your students' prior knowledge about insects:

Download the What's an insect? worksheet (PDF, 127K) from the TVNZ website.

2. In days gone by

Students consider why New Zealand has creatures living here that are different to anywhere else in the world. They look at factors that helped the giant wētā survive and factors that are now leading to its demise.

Download the In days gone by worksheet (PDF, 58K) from the TVNZ website.

The worksheet uses the information below and can be done in pairs or groups.

Giant wētā are one of our most ancient types of land animals.

Their design is virtually the same as fossil weta found in Queensland and they date back 190 million years - long before Australia and New Zealand parted company during the split-up of Gondwana.

Weta have flourished and diversified during New Zealand's last 80 million years of isolation and more than 70 endemic species have evolved.

Some reached a gigantic size and without mammals the giants came to occupy the same sort of night-living niche that rodents occupied in other countries.

When rats and mice started living here most giant wētā species couldn't compete. Their food was eaten and they became food for rodents. Numbers plummeted.

Weta grow and breed slowly. Wētāpunga, the biggest of the giant wētā, take around 18 months to reach maturity and they only breed towards the end of their two years of life.

3. Life's essentials

Bio boxes can quickly profile almost any person, place or animal. They're tightly written giving background information at a glance. They answer essential questions like:

A picture adds value.

Get your students to design a bio box for the giant wētā and find out a few essential facts at the same time.

Useful links are:
Kiwi Conservation Club
NZ Ecology Gigantism in Insects

Useful life cycle information for the bio box is:

The eggs are oval-shaped and 7 mm long and 2.5 mm wide. They're laid 50 mm deep in the soil.

The nymphs start off as mini - wētā about 5 mm long.

They moult (grow out of their skin) ten times before beginning adult life.

Adults are about 70-80 mm long but females grow bigger than males.

4. Good place for a giant

Hardly any giant wētā remain on the mainland because they've fallen prey to cats, rats, stoats, ferrets and weasels. They only survive in places where they can be protected from these predators.

Protection and recovery programmes can prove tricky too. Share this story with your students and discuss in class whether they would have approached the problem in a different way.
The wētāpunga, the biggest of the giant wētā has to share Little Barrier Island with the kiore, the Polynesian rat. In the past it was thought that kiore were reluctant to climb the trees that wētāpunga lived in so they didn't have huge impact this giant wētā's population. DOC rangers eliminated the feral cat population on the island which was great for the birds and lizards, but surprisingly, not so good for wētāpunga. Kiore were the cats' main prey and now the rat population has grown! That's bad news for wētāpunga. Its numbers are dwindling.
Watch the Meet the Locals episode Mahoenui wētā.

Get the class to focus on looking for these things and discuss them after viewing:

What saves these giant wētā from predators?

What's the biggest danger for these wētā?

Have these wētā evolved any defence systems against rats that really work

What feature does the female have that helps the female lay her eggs at a safe depth?

What else is being done to protect these giants of the insect world?

5. Saving a species

By studying endangered species of wētā and gathering information on their ways of life, we can establish new populations of giant wētā in safe places.

The Mahoenui giant wētā is an iconic New Zealand species, so the recovery programme wants to significantly improve their management and recovery.

Scientists work out why weta populations are declining, they establish original habitat characteristics and improve the effectiveness of reintroduction and restoration techniques.

In this activity the students devise a recovery plan of their own for the protection of wētā on a mainland site. Download A guide for your recovery plan worksheet (PDF, 63K) from the TVNZ website.

This recovery guide will help them formulate a plan and gives them handy hints that may see them think of ideas like the examples below.

Scientists are using miniature tracking equipment, such as tags, tiny transmitters, and lights fastened to the insects' thorax, to help track wētā in their haunts.

They collect eggs, hatch them, and raise young wētā in captivity, preparing them for release back into the wild.

6. Active involvement: motels for weta (an optional extra)

Tree wētā like living in holes in trees but there really aren't that many holes. That's why they dig under stones or chew through rotten logs to make their homes. Wētā motels help bring wētā to your backyard. They're placed in trees, under trees and even on fence posts.

Find out how to build a 3 star or 5 star wētā motel. A one star motel works well too - just hang some pieces of bamboo in a tree!

Wētā prefer motels without windows but some people like to peer at them to see what they're up to.

Make your windows from perspex or plastic from a bottle. You need to be able to remove them for cleaning because they go mouldy and they need shutters.

Wētā will live in motels with windows as long as their gallery is deep.

Wētā adapt well to living in a modified habitat. The females lay 100-300 eggs so if you build a home they like, then wētā will live there and numbers will grow!

Additional worksheet
Wētāpunga worksheet (PDF, 1,951K)

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The big friendly giants - the giant wētā

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Find out how the wētā evolved, why it's threatened and how we are protecting this ancient insect. Students will see why the wētā is unique, assess recovery plans and find out how to improve living conditions for wētā in their own backyard.

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DOC resource - also has body parts of wētā.

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Wētā (also spelled weta) is the common name for a group of about 70 insect species in the families Anostostomatidae and Rhaphidophoridae, endemic to New Zealand. They are giant flightless crickets, and some are among the heaviest insects in the world. Generally nocturnal, most small species are carnivores and scavengers while the larger species are herbivorous. Wētā are preyed on by introduced mammals, and some species are now critically endangered.

Wētā is a loanword, from the Māori word wētā, which refers to this whole group of large insects; some types of wētā (see below) have a specific Māori name. 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) means "filth or excrement".

Many wētā are large by insect standards and some species are among the largest and heaviest in the world. Their physical appearance is like a katydid, long-horned grasshopper, or cricket, but the hind legs are enlarged and usually very spiny. Many are wingless. Because they can cope with variations in temperature, wētā are found in a variety of environments, including alpine, forests, grasslands, caves, shrub lands and urban gardens. They are nocturnal, and all New Zealand species are flightless. Different species have different diets. Most wētā are predators or omnivores preying on other invertebrates, but the tree and giant wētā eat mostly lichens, leaves, flowers, seed-heads, and fruit.

Male giant wētā ( Deinacrida sp.) are smaller than females and they show scramble competition for mates. Tree wētā ( Hemideina sp) males have larger heads than females and a polygynandrous mating system with harem formation and male-male competition for mates. Ground wētā ( Hemiandrus sp.) males provide nuptial food gifts when mating and females of some species provide maternal care. Wētā eggs are laid in soil over the autumn and winter months and hatch the following spring. A wētā takes between one and two years to reach adulthood, and over this time will have to shed its skin around ten times as it grows.

Wētā can bite with powerful mandibles. Tree wētā bites are painful but not particularly common. Tree wētā lift their hind legs in a defence displays to look large and spiky, but they tend to retreat if given the chance. Tree wētā raise their hind legs into the air in warning to foes, and then bring them down to stridulate. Pegs or ridges on the side of their abdomen are struck by a patch of fine pegs at the inner surface of their hind legs ( femur) and this action makes a distinctive sound. These actions are also used in defence of a gallery by competing males. The female wētā looks as if she has a stinger, but it is an ovipositor, which enables her to lay eggs inside rotting or mossy wood or soil. Some species of Hemiandrus have very short ovipositors, related perhaps to their burrowing into soil and laying their eggs in a special chamber at the end of the burrow.

Fossilised orthopterans have been found in Russia, China, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand, but the relationships are open to different interpretations by scientists. Most wētā of both families are found in the Southern Hemisphere. Wētā were probably present in ancient Gondwanaland before Zealandia separated from it. Rhaphidophoridae dispersed over sea to colonise the Chatham Islands, the Auckland, Snares and Campbell Islands. The present species might have resulted from a recent radiation, which conflicts with those earlier ideas about dispersal of wētā forebears around the Southern Hemisphere (Wallis et al. 2000).

Giant, tree, ground, and tusked wētā are all members of the family Anostostomatidae (formerly in the Stenopelmatidae, but recently separated). Cave wētā are better referred to as tokoriro, since they are members of the family Rhaphidophoridae, called cave crickets or camel crickets elsewhere, in a different ensiferan superfamily. In New Zealand there were as of 2014 19 genera of tokoriri, and their taxonomy is under review. Seven new species of South Island cave wētā were named and described in 2019, including Pleioplectron rodmorrisi.

The 11 species of giant wētā ( Deinacrida spp.) are endemic to New Zealand. Giant wētā ( wētā punga in Māori) are large by insect standards. They are heavy herbivorous Orthoptera with a body length of up to 100 mm (3.9 in) excluding their lengthy legs and antennae, and weigh about 20-30 g. A captive giant wētā ( Deinacrida heteracantha) filled with eggs reached a record 70 g, making it one of the heaviest documented insects in the world and heavier than a sparrow. The largest species of giant wētā is the Little Barrier Island wētā, also known as the wētāpunga. Giant wētā tend to be less social and more passive than tree wētā ( Hemideina spp.). They are classified in the genus Deinacrida, which is Greek for "terrible grasshopper". They are found primarily on small islands off the coast of the main islands or at high elevation on New Zealand's South Island (e.g. the alpine scree wētā D. connectens), and are sometimes considered examples of island gigantism.

Tree wētā () are commonly encountered in suburban settings in New Zealand's North Island. They are up to 40 mm long and most commonly live in holes in trees formed by beetle and moth larvae or where rot has set in after a twig has broken off. The hole, called a gallery, is maintained by the wētā and any growth of the bark surrounding the opening is chewed away. They readily occupy a preformed gallery in a piece of wood (a "wētā motel") and can be kept in a suburban garden as pets. A gallery might house a harem of up to 10 adult females and one male. Tree wētā are nocturnal. Their diet consists of plants and small insects. The males have much larger jaws than the females, though both sexes will stridulate and bite when threatened.

The seven species of tree wētā ( pūtangatanga in Māori) are:

The North Island species each have a distinctive set of chromosomes ( karyotype). When the territories of species overlap, as with the related species H. femorata and H. ricta on Banks Peninsula, they may interbreed, although offspring are sterile.

Tusked wētā are characterised by long, curved tusks projecting forward from the male's mandibles. The tusks are used in male-to-male combat, not for biting. Female tusked wētā look similar to ground wētā. Tusked wētā are mainly carnivorous, eating worms and insects. There are three known species in two different subfamilies: the Northland tusked wētā Anisoura nicobarica (originally described as a ground wētā, Hemiandrus monstrosus), in the subfamily Deinacridinae; the Mercury Islands tusked wētā Motuweta isolata; and the most recently discovered, the Raukumara tusked wētā Motuweta riparia. Motuweta is in the same subfamily as ground wētā, Anostostomatinae.

The Northland tusked wētā lives in tree holes, similar to tree wētā. The Mercury Islands or Middle Island tusked wētā was discovered in 1970. It is a ground-dwelling wētā, entombing itself in shallow burrows during the day, and is critically endangered: a Department of Conservation breeding programme has established new colonies on other islands in the Mercury group. The Raukumara tusked wētā was discovered in 1996, in the Raukumara Range near the Bay of Plenty. It has the unusual habit of diving into streams and hiding underwater for up to three minutes if threatened.

Ground wētā are classified in the genus Hemiandrus. About 30 species of ground wētā occur in New Zealand, and several very similar (undescribed) ones are found in Australia. They are also very like the Californian Cnemotettix-a similarity perhaps due to their very similar habits and habitat. 19 Hemiandrus species have been described from New Zealand and other distinct populations require further study. They hide in burrows in the ground during the day, and those that live in open ground (e.g., , ) conceal their exit holes with a specially made perforated door. During the night, ground wētā hunt invertebrate prey and eat fruit. Most female ground wētā have long ovipositers (e.g. H. maculifrons), but some have short ovipositers and maternal care (e.g. H. maia, H. pallitarsis).

The 60 species of cave wētā or tokoriro are only very distant relatives of the other types of wētā, being classified in several genera of subfamily Macropathinae in family Rhaphidophoridae.

They have extra-long antennae, and may have long, slender legs and a passive demeanour. Although they have no hearing organs on their front legs like species of Hemideina and Deinacrida, some (such as Talitropsis) are very sensitive to ground vibrations sensed through pads on their feet. Specialised hairs on the cerci and organs on the antennae are also sensitive to low-frequency vibrations in the air.

Although some do live in caves, most species (e.g. Talitropsis sedilloti) live in the forest among leaf litter, logs, tree holes and amongst broken rocks. Cave-dwelling species may be active within the confines of their caves during the daytime, and those individuals close to cave entrances venture outside at night.

Although wētā had native predators in the form of birds (especially the weka and kiwi), reptiles, and bats before the arrival of humans, introduced species such as cats, hedgehogs, rats (including kiore) and mustelids have caused a sharp increase in the rate of predation. They are also vulnerable to habitat destruction caused by humans and modification of their habitat caused by introduced browsers. New Zealand's Department of Conservation considers 16 of the 70 species at risk. Programmes to prevent extinctions have been implemented since the 1970s.

Some especially endangered species are tracked by radio beacons.

New Zealanders Peter Jackson, Richard Taylor, and Jamie Selkirk founded visual effects company Weta Digital, naming it after the insect. There have been suggestions that Weta changes the spelling of its company name so it does not translate as "excrement".

1. ^ Trewick, Steve; Morgan-Richards, Mary (2014). NZ wild life : introducing the weird and wonderful character of natural New Zealand. Auckland, New Zealand: Penguin. ISBN 9780143568896. OCLC 881301862.

2. ^ Griffin, Melissa J.; Trewick, Steve A.; Wehi, Priscilla M.; Morgan-Richards, Mary (2011). "Exploring the concept of niche convergence in a land without rodents: the case of weta as small mammals". New Zealand Journal of Ecology. 35 (3): 302-307.

3. ^ Wehi, Priscilla M.; Hicks, Brendan J. (2010). "Isotopic fractionation in a large herbivorous insect, the Auckland tree weta". Journal of Insect Physiology. 56 (12): 1877-1882. doi:10.1016/j.jinsphys.2010.08.005. ISSN 0022-1910. PMID 20709068.

4. Griffin, Melissa J.; Morgan-Richards, Mary; Trewick, Steve A. (2011). "Is the tree weta Hemideina crassidens an obligate herbivore?" (PDF). New Zealand Natural Sciences. 36: 11-19.

5. ^ Kelly, Clint D.; Bussière, Luc F.; Gwynne, Darryl T. (2008). "Sexual Selection for Male Mobility in a Giant Insect with Female‐Biased Size Dimorphism" (PDF). The American Naturalist. 172 (3): 417-423. doi:10.1086/589894. hdl:. ISSN 0003-0147. PMID 18651830. S2CID 22494505.

6. Wehi, Priscilla M.; Jorgensen, Murray; Morgan-Richards, Mary (2013). "Sex- and season-dependent behaviour in a flightless insect, the Auckland tree weta (Hemideina thoracica)". New Zealand Journal of Ecology. 37 (1): 75-83.

7. ^ Taylor Smith, B. L.; Morgan-Richards, Mary; Trewick, Steve A. (2013). "New Zealand ground wētā (Anostostomatidae: Hemiandrus): descriptions of two species with notes on their biology". New Zealand Journal of Zoology. 40 (4): 314-329. doi:10.1080/03014223.2013.804422.

8. ^ Field, Laurence H. (2001). The biology of wetas, king crickets and their allies. Wallingford, Oxon., UK: CABI Pub. ISBN 9780851994086. OCLC 559432458.

9. ^ Pratt, Renae C.; Morgan-Richards, Mary; Trewick, Steve A. (2008). "Diversification of New Zealand weta (Orthoptera: Ensifera: Anostostomatidae) and their relationships in Australasia". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences. 363 (1508): 3427-3437. doi:10.1098/rstb.2008.0112. ISSN 0962-8436. PMC . PMID 18782727.

10. Johns, P. (1997). "The Gondwanaland weta: family Anostostomatidae (formerly in Stenopelmatidae, Henicidae or Mimnermidae): nomenclatural problems, world checklist, new genera and species". Journal of Orthoptera Research. 6 (6): 125-138. doi:10.2307/3503546. JSTOR 3503546.

11. ^ Cook, Lorraine D.; Trewick, Steven A.; Morgan-Richards, Mary; Johns, Peter M. (2010). "Status of the New Zealand cave weta (Rhaphidophoridae) genera Pachyrhamma, Gymnoplectron and Turbottoplectron". Invertebrate Systematics. 24 (2): 131-138. doi:10.1071/IS09047. ISSN 1447-2600.

12. ^ Trewick, Steven A.; Hegg, Danilo; Morgan-Richards, Mary; Fitness, Josephine L. (2018). "Reinstatement of the New Zealand cave wētā genus Miotopus Hutton (Orthoptera: Rhaphidophoridae) and description of a new species". European Journal of Taxonomy (468). doi:10.5852/ejt.2018.468. ISSN 2118-9773.

13. ^ Morgan-Richards, M (1997). "Intraspecific karyotype variation is not concordant with allozyme variation in the Auckland tree weta of New Zealand, Hemideina thoracica (Orthoptera: Stenopelmatidae)". Biological Journal of the Linnean Society. 60 (4): 423-442. doi:10.1006/bijl.1996.0114.

14. ^ Bulgarella, Mariana; Trewick, Steven A.; Minards, Niki A.; Jacobson, Melissa J.; Morgan-Richards, Mary (2013). "Shifting ranges of two tree weta species (Hemideina spp.): competitive exclusion and changing climate". Journal of Biogeography. 41 (3): 524-535. doi:10.1111/jbi.12224. ISSN 0305-0270.

15. ^ Morgan-Richards, M. (1995). "A new species of tree weta from the North Island of New Zealand (Hemideina: Stenopelmatidae: Orthoptera)". New Zealand Entomologist. 18: 15-23. doi:10.1080/00779962.1995.9721996.

16. ^ Mckean, NE; Trewick, SA; Morgan-Richards, M (2015). "Comparative cytogenetics of North Island tree wētā in sympatry". New Zealand Journal of Zoology. 42 (2): 73-84. doi:10.1080/03014223.2015.1032984. ISSN 0301-4223. S2CID 56256942.

17. ^ Mckean, Natasha E.; Trewick, Steven A.; Morgan-Richards, Mary (2016). "Little or no gene flow despite F1 hybrids at two interspecific contact zones". Ecology and Evolution. 6 (8): 2390-2404. doi:10.1002/ece3.1942. ISSN 2045-7758. PMC . PMID 27066230.

18. ^ Taylor-Smith, B. L.; Trewick, S. A.; Morgan-Richards, M. (2016). "Three new ground wētā species and a redescription of Hemiandrus maculifrons". New Zealand Journal of Zoology. 43 (4): 363-383. doi:10.1080/03014223.2016.1205109. ISSN 0301-4223. S2CID 88565199.

19. ^ Johns, Peter (2001). "Distribution and conservation status of ground weta, Hemiandrus species (Orthoptera: Anostostomatidae)". Science for Conservation. 180 - via New Zealand Department of Conservation.

20. Richards, Aola M. (1961). "Some Observations on New Zealand Cave-wetas". Tuatara. 9 (2): 80-83.

21. ^ Roy, Eleanor Ainge (21 October 2016). "From a draughty hut to Hollywood: the rise of Peter Jackson's secretive animation giant". The Guardian.

Wallis, G. P.; Morgan-Richards, M.; Trewick, S.A. (2000). "Phylogeographical pattern correlates with Pliocene mountain building in the alpine scree weta (Orthoptera, Anostostomatidae)". Molecular Ecology. 9 (6): 657-666. doi:10.1046/j.1365-294x.2000.00905.x. PMID 10849282. S2CID 26987872.

Sherley, Greg H (1998). "Threatened Weta Recovery Plan" (PDF). Department of Conservation.

Bleakley, Craig; Stringer, Ian; Robertson, Alastair; Hedderley, Duncan (2006). Design and use of artificial refuges for monitoring adult tree weta, Hemideina crassidens and H. thoracica. Wellington, N.Z.: Science & Technical Pub., Dept. of Conservation. ISBN 9780478140620.

Salmon, John T. (1956). "A Key to the Tree and Ground Wetas of New Zealand". Tuatara. 6 (1): 19-23.

Ramløv, H. (2000) Aspects of cold tolerance in ectothermic animals. Journal of Human Reproduction. 15 (Suppl. 5): 26-46.

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Wētā (also spelled weta) is the common name for a group of about 70 insect species in the families Anostostomatidae and Rhaphidophoridae, endemic to New Zealand. They are giant flightless crickets, and some are among the heaviest insects in the world. Generally nocturnal, most small species are carnivores and scavengers while the larger species are herbivorous.

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Scroll down to find this info. Massey University

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Do you have an insect?:

Insects (Arthropoda: Hexapoda: Insecta) form an important group of invertebrates globally in almost all habitats. Like other arthropods including spiders and centipedes, insects possess jointed appendages. Chitinous exoskeleton, jointed appendages, three segmented body (head, thorax and abdomen), a pair of compound eyes, a pair of antennae and ectognathous (exposed) mouth parts distinguish insects from their non-insect relatives. Many insects possess 2 to 4 wings (Pterygota) and insects are the only invertebrates that possess active flight capability.

Do you have an orthopteran?:

Order Orthoptera (meaning straight wings) include grasshoppers, crickets, weta, locusts etc. Not all orthopterans have wings; in winged species, the wings can be folded over the body. Orthopterans can be differentiated from other similar insects (such as mantids, stick insects and cockroaches) by presence of enlarged hind legs that enable the orthopterans to jump. However a group of orhtopterans (mole-crickets) lack enlarged hind-legs, instead, the fore-legs are well developed and modified for burrowing (fossorial legs) into soil. Use the key below to delineate the 6 New Zealand Orthoptera families, based on different combinations of habitat (in the 1st collum of the below table) and morphological characters (in the 1st row of the below table).

Do you have a weta? Let us find out:

The Maori term "weta" is used for species belonging to two NZ ortrhopteran families; the Anostostomatidae (giant weta, tree weta, ground weta and tusk weta), and the Rhaphidophoridae (cave weta). The most familiar are tree weta, and a few large cave weta because they are the most commonly encountered. Most other species go unnoticed because they are small and forest-dwelling, and like all weta are nocturnal. Many species (especially among the ground weta and cave weta) remained to be described. Some species occur widely through New Zealand, whilst others have very small ranges. Depending on taxonomic treatment there are currently recognized about 29 Anostostomatide species (in five genera) including 11 giant weta, 7 tree weta, 3 tusk weta, 8 ground weta, and 54 Rhapidophoridae species (in about 16 genera).
Do you have a male or female weta?

female

male

ovipositor present

Ovipositor is egg-laying organ present in females

Which weta?
Key to separate the two "weta" families:

Go here an alternative key to New Zealand Orthoptera families other than Acrididae.

Which cave weta genus?...................continue here (the Rhaphidophoridae page) to find out more about New Zealand cave weta genera

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Do you have an insect?: Insects (Arthropoda: Hexapoda: Insecta) form an important group of invertebrates globally in almost all habitats. Like other arthropods including spiders and centipedes, insects possess jointed appendages. Chitinous exoskeleton, jointed appendages, three segmented body (head, thorax and abdomen), a pair of compound eyes, a pair of antennae and ectognathous (exposed) mouth parts distinguish insects from their non-insect relatives.

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Landcare Research NZ

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A bilingual interactive tool to help you identify bugs found around New Zealand.