r/nature • u/Amitmandal001 • 5d ago
‘The future is bright’: breeding programme brings world’s heaviest insect back from the brink.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/oct/05/new-zealand-worlds-heaviest-insect-breeding-programme4
u/ConnectRutabaga3925 5d ago
yikes bigger crickets. we never gonna sleep
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u/thickestbrickest 5d ago
The natural world is filled with creatures more fearsome and extraordinary than we could ever imagine.
I don’t know the magic words that would allow you to feel wonder instead of disgust at the fact that this species, which might otherwise be wiped from the earth, gets to live because of the time and energy of people who care. But I think that’s pretty neat.
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u/dandylover1 5d ago
"The natural world is filled with creatures more fearsome and extraordinary than we could ever imagine." Is that your quote or is it from someone well-known? Either way, I love it.
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u/Amitmandal001 5d ago
The population of New Zealand’s endemic wētāpunga – believed to be the world’s heaviest insect – is officially “increasing” thanks to a groundbreaking breeding programme that has overseen the release of 11,000 insects into the wild.
“The future of wētāpunga is looking bright,” said Dr Chris Green, an honorary researcher at the department of conservation, who documented the success of the project for the New Zealand Journal of Zoology. Green co-authored a report released on 2 October that outlines the success of the breeding programme.
“Eleven thousand individuals for release is extraordinary and outstanding.”
A female wētāpunga can weigh as much as a mouse. Its body can grow up to 10cm long (nearly 4in) and its leg span can be as wide as 20cm.
It is the largest of 70 wētā species and was once found across parts of the North Island before predation from introduced species and habitat loss contributed to their decline. By the 1990s, they were considered “endangered” and are now presumed extinct in the wild on New Zealand’s mainland. The insects reside primarily on a smattering of predator-free islands in Auckland’s Hauraki Gulf and off the coast of Northland.
But their fortune is starting to change. Over the past 15 years, tens of thousands of wētāpunga have been bred at Butterfly Creek, a wildlife facility, and Auckland zoo, enabling the release of wētāpunga across new predator-free islands and some mainland reserves north of Auckland.
Butterfly Creek and Auckland zoo established husbandry techniques that, over time, have been scaled up to rear large numbers of wētāpunga in communal creches. The young wētāpunga – or nymphs – are fed a three-part diet of fresh foliage, fish flake protein and leaf litter. The protein is “critical” to the survival of the youngest nymphs, Green said.
Once big enough to protect themselves, the insects are transferred to their new habitat. The efforts have led to 45 separate translocations to wild habitats, which is “a very high number in any recovery of a species”, Green said.