{"id":525,"date":"2017-06-12T20:55:56","date_gmt":"2017-06-12T08:55:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.neilfitzgeraldphoto.co.nz\/new\/?p=525"},"modified":"2017-06-12T21:00:05","modified_gmt":"2017-06-12T09:00:05","slug":"giant-weta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.neilfitzgeraldphoto.co.nz\/new\/2017\/giant-weta\/","title":{"rendered":"Giant weta"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Recently I had the good fortune to be able to help a scientist friend studying Buller&#8217;s shearwaters on the Poor Knights Islands. The Poor Knights are home to birds, reptiles and insects found nowhere else, and one of the endemics I was eager to see was the Poor Knights giant weta (<em>Deinacrida fallai<\/em>). An adult female Poor Knights giant weta is a massive beast, and I was thrilled to see a couple of them (and a tiny juvenile male too). Although the record for largest giant weta goes to the wetapunga (<em>Deinacrida heteracantha<\/em>) of Little Barrier island, you would be hard pressed to separate these two species by size.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"figure mx-auto\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid blog-image\" alt=\"Poor Knights giant weta\" title=\"Poor Knights giant weta\" src=\"\/images\/Poor-Knights-giant-weta-22369.jpg\"\/><figcaption class=\"figure-caption\">A huge female Poor Knights giant weta (<em>Deinacrida fallai<\/em>). Like other giant weta, behind her intimidating appearance is a harmless herbivore. Taken with a Canon 1D Mark IV, EF100mm f\/2.8 Macro USM, 1\/125 s at f13, ISO 100.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Posting <a href=\"http:\/\/www.neilfitzgeraldphoto.co.nz\/gallery\/index.php\/category\/weta-crickets-and-grasshoppers\">photos of Poor Knights giant weta<\/a> to my gallery prompted me to hurry up and sort my wetapunga\/Little Barrier Island giant weta photos too, so you&#8217;ll now find those in the gallery too.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"figure mx-auto\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid blog-image\" alt=\"Little Barrier Island giant weta\" title=\"Wetapunga Little Barrier Island giant weta\" src=\"\/images\/wetapunga-21285.jpg\"\/><figcaption class=\"figure-caption\">An adult wetapunga\/Little Barrier Island giant weta (<em>Deinacrida heteracantha<\/em>) emerging shortly after dark from its daytime retreat deep in the base of an epiphytic plant. Taken with a Canon 1D Mark IV, EF100mm f\/2.8 Macro USM, 1\/300 s at f11, ISO 100.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"figure mx-auto\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid blog-image\" alt=\"Little Barrier Island giant weta\" title=\"Little Barrier Island giant weta\" src=\"\/images\/Little-Barrier-Island-giant-weta-21187.jpg\"\/><figcaption class=\"figure-caption\">This female wetapunga\/Little Barrier Island giant weta was found at night after light rain laying eggs (ovipositing) in a clump of moss. Taken with a Canon 1D Mark IV, EF100mm f\/2.8 Macro USM, 1\/250 s at f11, ISO 160.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The first giant weta I saw was over 11 years ago, and completely unexpected. On a weekend tramp in Kahurangi National Park I went for a quick walk above the treeline before crawling into my sleeping bag in the tussock and came across several beautiful Mount Arthur giant weta (<em>Deinacrida tibiospina<\/em>). In stark contrast to their North Island forest-dwelling cousins, these alpine specialists live in among rocks and tussock, and spend winters buried under snow. The juveniles are especially attractive with their dark, gold-striped suits.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"figure mx-auto\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid blog-image\" alt=\"Mount Arthur Island giant weta\" title=\"Mt Arthur Island giant weta\" src=\"\/images\/Mount-Arthur-giant-weta-2574.jpg\"\/><figcaption class=\"figure-caption\">An adult male Mt Arthur giant weta in it&#8217;s natural environment of bare scree high above the treeline. Taken with a Canon 20D, EF100mm f\/2.8 Macro USM, 1\/250 s at f13, ISO 100.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"figure float-xs-left\"><a href=\"\/new\/2017\/giant-weta\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img blog-thumb\" alt=\"Giant weta photos\" title=\"Giant weta photos\" src=\"\/images\/Poor-Knights-giant-weta-22375.jpg\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n<p>Giant weta photos, old and new. Eleven years ago I stumbled upon the Mt Arthur giant weta, and now more recently I&#8217;ve added wetapunga (Little Barrier Island giant weta) and Poor Knights giant weta to my collection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[53,24,22,45],"class_list":["post-525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-photo","tag-giant-weta","tag-insect","tag-macro","tag-wildlife-photos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neilfitzgeraldphoto.co.nz\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neilfitzgeraldphoto.co.nz\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neilfitzgeraldphoto.co.nz\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neilfitzgeraldphoto.co.nz\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neilfitzgeraldphoto.co.nz\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.neilfitzgeraldphoto.co.nz\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neilfitzgeraldphoto.co.nz\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neilfitzgeraldphoto.co.nz\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neilfitzgeraldphoto.co.nz\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}