Weta, Attack!

The most peculiar event occurred to me yesterday.

It seemed like any typical Carl day.

Until.

One minute I was sitting peacefully in my bedroom. The next minute I stood up and as I did so, something light and whispy fell onto my head, slid down my cheek and landed on my bed. Even in the dim lighting I easily spotted the enormous bug looking up at me from my bed. I screamed like a little boy. This brought my roommate running even though he was still on the phone. We both knew it was new zealand's notorious Weta. My roommate asked me what kind of Weta it was as there are many varieties (some even endangered). In a rare moment of wit, I looked down at it on my bed and exclaimed - "it's a bed-weta!"

My weta with dust-bunny attached to it's rear leg:

My finger posing with my finger, after removing dust-bunny:

Actually it was an Auckland Tree Weta with one broken antennae, one crushed leg and a dust-bunny stuck onto it's leg. What could it have been up to on my ceiling?

Weta are really cool, and I've been hoping to see one for some time.
Weta are endemic only to new zealand and are one of the oldest insects on earth. Since new zealand has no native mammals, for millions of years Weta's actually helped fill the ecosystem niche which rats and mice do in the rest of the world (such as spreading seeds). They are all very large compared to other insects. They look like cross between a cockroach and a grasshopper but have antennae twice as long as their body. Weta are really big (up to 4 inches and 2.5 ounces heavier than a sparrow), and really cool (mountain stone weta can survive months being frozen in suspended animation).

But tree weta should prefer trees, not heads or beds.

So I scooped him up in a tuperware and put him out in the garden to fend for himself.
He limped hastily away.



Thanks google for the high resolution closeup my cellphone camera could never have provided:

"aaarrrr!!"



-Carl