Hemideina crassidens
The title photo is a close-up of a large male with its outsized head. They moult through 10 or more instars to get to this size, but the big animals are less common on the mainland because they often get eaten first.
The females are easily distinguished by their big ovipositor. This one might have been looking for a place to lay her eggs:
Tree weta are one of at least four species of weta on Puangiangi, the others being Cook Strait giant weta, cave weta and the recently confirmed ground weta. They feed at night and congregate for the day in holes in trees and other nice places to hide. They eat mostly vegetation but will take small insects too.
They love coming inside and I constantly have to rescue them from the firewood box. Tree weta can give a small bite to defend themselves. They like fruit also.
The video below is made from footage collected over one night at a roost site in a dead tree lucerne. For scale, the hole you can see is about 20 mm across. I put the camera there because I could see a pair of legs at the hole’s entrance. Warning: contains a real combat scene.
The video shows some interesting behaviour from a big male. You can interpret it just as well as I can.
I set up the camera a few days before I read that George Gibbs, an eminent scientist with a close interest in weta, had died. I know of his work through the much-copied “weta motels” he developed. These artificial roosting spots with a hinged section that opens to a transparent sheet with a view of the tunnel arrangement inside are scattered around forests where he and his students worked, and they are a great way to see weta without disturbing them too much.
For those interested the IP camera used can focus down to a working distance of 100 mm. The camera is screwed to the trunk a bit over that distance from the hole and the iris is stopped right down to give some depth of field at these close distances. When motion is detected, the camera footage is stored on a small computer connected by an ethernet cable about 100 m long, which provides power to the camera as well as the data connection. The footage can be viewed back in Wellington over a secure Tailscale tunnel and it was downloaded for editing at home in DaVinci Resolve. I don’t know what the pixelly artefacts are at the start of some of the clips- I tried but could not make them go away.
What a fabulous video! In my experience with weta houses at Queen Elizabeth Park, “harems” of 3 or 4 females with one male is common in one compartment, but rarely two males together. The video confirmed that. I was fascinated by the little dance the occupying male did after he had shown off the rival. Thanks!
Thanks Jean. Yes I had read that about the harem aspect. Wonder if it depends on the size of the refuge. There is some evidence there is more than one big male occupying that one. If I get any compelling footage I may post it as a follow-up.
What great photos Barry. Loved the video. I was transfixed, waiting to see if the (what I call) lizard got the weta!
I am a simple lad.
Hi Greg- thank you. Yes it looked like the gecko might be thinking of dinner. A couple of days later it moved in with them- think it wanted to get out of the rain. So the tiny hole for one weta turns out to be more of a portal to something much larger.