Wētāpunga (Giant Wētā)

Deinacrida heteracantha — the wētāpunga, also called the Little Barrier giant wētā — is one of about 70 species of New Zealand wētā (the indigenous name for several Anostostomatidae cricket-relatives). The species is the heaviest insect in the world: gravid females have been recorded at 71 g, heavier than many sparrows. The wētāpunga is one of the most-cited examples of 'island gigantism' — the evolutionary phenomenon in which insects (or other taxa) on isolated islands fill ecological roles normally occupied by mammals or larger vertebrates and grow correspondingly large. New Zealand's biota lacks native land mammals (only two bat species are native), and the wētā filled the niche of small foraging herbivores in the absence of mice, rats, hedgehogs, or rabbits. The species was historically widespread across the North Island but was extirpated by introduced rats; today the only naturally surviving population is on Little Barrier Island (Hauturu-o-Toi), where rats were eradicated in 2004. The Auckland Zoo Wētāpunga Recovery Programme has bred and released wētāpunga onto multiple predator-free island reserves since 2014 — a success story comparable to the Lord Howe Island stick insect recovery. Wētāpunga eat tree leaves, fruit, and other plant material; they are nocturnal and arboreal.