Quick Dips

Yet More Wetas!

A previously-unknown species of giant weta was recently identified by Victoria University scientists, after trampers in the Southern Alps noticed the unusual insect.

Guided by tramper Jan Heine, a party led by Dr George Gibbs located 36 specimens in Price's Basin, east of Harihari. The new weta is quite different from the seven previously recognised species. A few days later, following up a lead from a 1965 photograph, 43 slightly different wetas were found at another site some 250 km away in the West Matukituki Valley.

"The discovery gave us a sense of the excitement experienced by the 19th-century naturalists when they first found our giant insects --  something you would not expect to happen in the 1990s," says Gibbs.

It is uncertain whether the insects are from different species or not, and it is possible that they are the same as the tentatively-named Mt Cook giant weta, known only from a few specimens.

Gibbs says the species is simply inaccessible, rather than rare or endangered. He notes that alpine wetas feed at night, and thus tend to go unnoticed, despite their size. The university is now keeping 20 live wetas for study.

"This whole exercise shows that we have lots more to find out about New Zealand's natural history. Entomologists will be unlikely to stumble across such animals by their own endeavours but, with the help of observant users of the mountains, the age of exciting discoveries is not yet over," Gibbs says.