Cave Wetas.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20341, 26 June 1934, Page 6

Cave Wetas.

Nature Notes.

By

James Drummond,

F.L.S., F.Z.S.

M R D. W. lIURSTIIOUSE. of Hastings. .cut into a pumice bank on his property in the Taupo district and covered the cut, making it dark inside. At night the pumice walls were covered with insects. In the daytime there were only one or two on the walls, but there were crowds under boards and behind sacks. They can hop smartly, but they move very slowly unless disturbed. From late in summer until about the first week in May they are plentiful. lie has not seen them anywhere except in the Taupo district. They are cave wetas, flightless, earless and devoid of sound-producing organs, but possessed of long, strong legs and long and sensitive feelers. Their limbs are shorter than the limbs of a related species, which, from the tip of a feeler to the end of a hind leg measure about nine inches. Another species in the same group has a total length of about fourteen inches and more than 550 segments in its long feelers. Males of some species of wetas produce grating sounds, and some wetas have ears on their front legs below the knee. Shorthorned grasshoppers have ears on the hind body. Some other insects have beautiful ears on their feelers.