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Sticker of Wellington tree wētā
Bug card No. 1431 of 1,500

Wellington tree wētā

Hemideina crassidens
Eats: A bit of everythingGrasshoppers and cricketsForests and woods6 legs

The Wellington tree wētā is a big, shiny insect from New Zealand that cannot fly. Its belly has dark and yellow stripes, a bit like a bumblebee. During the day it hides in holes in trees, and at night it climbs around looking for food.

Lives in
New Zealand, in the south of the North Island and the northwest of the South Island
Length
6.5 cm (2.6 in)
or more
Top speed
about 5.4 km/h (3.4 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Can bite or sting
If it feels scared, it lifts its spiky back legs to scare you off, and it can give a nip. Just watch it and leave it be.
What does it eat?
It mostly eats leaves, flowers and fruit. It also eats insects, alive or dead, when it gets the chance, and it really likes moths.
For real!Photo of Wellington tree wētā
Picture by Wolfgang K. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Wellington tree wētā about 6.5 cm long (2.6 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)A crayon about 9 cm (3.5 in)A banana about 18 cm (7.1 in)
as long as 2 toy building bricks in a rowcould run across a dinner table in 0.7 secondsmoves 23 times its own body length every second

How big is Wellington tree wētā compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

It does not dig its own home. It moves into old tunnels in living trees that were dug by big wood-eating caterpillars.

2

A good tree hole has a narrow door, about 2 centimetres wide, so birds cannot get in.

3

The boys can have small, medium or huge heads with long jaws, depending on when they finished growing.

4

The girls have a small head and a long tube at the tail for laying eggs.

5

Its stripy colours look like the shirts of the Wellington rugby team.

you asked

Most asked questions about Wellington tree wētā

?What is a wētā?

A big, flightless insect from New Zealand, related to crickets and grasshoppers.

?Does the Wellington tree wētā bite?

It can nip if you grab it, and it kicks with its spiky back legs. It is best to just watch.

?What does a tree wētā eat?

Mostly leaves, flowers and fruit, and sometimes insects like moths.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Hemideina crassidens
Named by
Blanchard, 1851
Group
Grasshoppers and crickets
Family
Anostostomatidae
Classification
Insecta > Orthoptera > Anostostomatidae
Lives on
Australia and Oceania

Where the facts come from

  1. Hemideina crassidens (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by Wolfgang K. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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