Quick Dips

Waiting for Wetas

Massey University MSc student Jackie Townsend has spent every holiday break over the past year crawling around Banks Peninsula studying the night life of the weta.

Not just any old common or garden weta, but a highly endangered tree weta (Hemideina ricta) found only on Banks Peninsula. Just to confuse matters, the peninsula is also home to the common Canterbury tree weta (Hemideina femorata). To add to the confusion, there are also intermediate and hybrid weta between the two species.

"There were weta that looked like the rare species and were, there were weta that looked like the intermediate and were the rare one, there were weta that looked like the common one and were; and there were weta that looked like the intermediate and were the hybrid!" says Townsend.

Townsend is studying the habitat and food preferences of the Banks Peninsula weta, which is at the top of the Department of Conservation's protected species list. She has discovered one unfortunate aspect of their dietary habits -- they are "quite cannibalistic".

"The most frustrating thing I found from my night time prowling is that weta spend a lot of time apparently doing nothing but sitting in their holes. The other possibility is that weta were extremely active between my recording sessions, and did everything from mating and moulting between observation times."

Another Massey student, Liz Domett, is studying the feeding habits, reproduction and egg development of the giant weta, Deinacrida (Mahoenui), whose adults can grow up to 6cm long and weigh up to 18g. Mahoenui is still only classified as a genus, and not yet as a species, meaning they are not protected by law. However, they are protected within the DoC-owned Mahoenui Reserve.