Entirety of your hand: Worlds heftiest and most horrifying insect brought back from extinction its heavier than a mouse
Jiminiy Christmas!Once on the brink of extinction, the world’s heaviest insect — the wētāpunga — is staging a remarkable comeback thanks to an extraordinary breeding program.“This species was endangered at the start of the program, it is now not endangered – it is recovering,” Dr.Chris Green, an honorary research associate at New Zealand’s Department Of Conservation, told RNZ.He co-authored a report in the New Zealand Journal of Zoology describing the conservation campaign, which culminated in the release of over 11,000 of these colossal creepy crawlies into the wild.
It’s safe to say they’ve made a big return.Also known as the Little Barrier Island giant wētā, this colossal cricket tips the scales at up to 35 grams — heavier than a sparrow or a mouse — while a pregnant female clocked in at a record 71 grams.“The size of adult females would sit nicely on the entirety of your hand,” exclaimed Green.These behemoth bugs, which belong to the cricket or grasshopper family, can also grow to 4 inches long boast a maximum leg span of eight inches.Giant wetas once scuttled across all of New Zealand’s North Island, before they were nearly wiped out by settlers, who cut down their forests and introduced cats and rats.
Like many flightless wonders such as the dodo, these entomological heavyweights were defenseless against these invasive predators.By the 1990s, the chonky critters had vanished from NZ’s mainland with the only remaining wild population residing on Hauturu/Little Barrier Island.To bring the thick crickets back from the brink, experts at Butterfly Creek and Auckland Zoo had to rely on novel husbandry techniques, including feeding the nymphs fresh foliage, fish flake protein and leaf litter, the Guardian reported.They were also able to rear large numbers of the cumbersome crickets by keeping them in communal mesh cages.
When the wetas were big enough to fend for themselves, the conservationists started releasing them into the wil...