■ Auckland Zoo has bred and released more than 4000 wētāpunga on to pest-free islands in the Hauraki Gulf. The Bay of Islands release was the first outside the Auckland area.
■ They're big and scary-looking, but wētāpunga are gentle creatures. That big spike on the female's rear end isn't a stinger, it's a tube for laying eggs in the soil.
■ Wētāpunga are even more ancient than tuatara. They've been around for 190 million years.
■ So far 46 wētāpunga have been released on Urupukapuka Island, 42 on Moturua and 40 on Motuarohia, all in the eastern Bay of Islands. Thousands more could follow over the next three years.
■ The islands have been pest-free since 2009 thanks to Project Island Song, an ecological restoration project. Tens of thousands of trees have been planted and species such as toutouwai (North Island robin), pateke (brown teal), tīeke (saddleback), pōpokotea (whitehead), kākāriki (red-crowned parakeet) and Duvaucel's gecko have been reintroduced.
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After an absence of more than 140 years, one of the world's biggest insects is once again clambering through Far North tree tops.
More than 120 wētāpunga, the biggest of New Zealand's 11 species of giant wētā, have been released in the Bay of Islands. Once fully-grown the females will weigh as much as a small bird and measure up to 20cm long, about the size of a large adult hand.
Wētāpunga were once widespread in Northland, but the gentle giants are highly vulnerable to introduced predators, especially rats, cats and mice. They were wiped out on the mainland in the 1800s, and until 2012 the only wētāpunga left on the planet were clinging to survival on Hauturu (Little Barrier Island).
Since then Auckland Zoo has worked out how to breed them in captivity, and has returned thousands to pest-free islands in the Hauraki Gulf.
This time it was the Far North's turn to welcome back the ancient creatures, whose 190-million-year lineage makes even the tuatara look with a newcomer.
The young wētāpunga, about eight months old, were transported from Auckland in individual bamboo tubes by staff from Auckland Zoo's ectotherm (cold-blooded animal) department. After an early-morning welcome at Rāwhiti Marae they were taken by boat to the islands of Urupukapuka, Moturua and Motuarohia, with about 40 released on each.
After karakia volunteers tied the tubes to suitable branches and removed the mesh keeping the insects inside.
The wētāpunga were expected to wait until nightfall to emerge and seek out their favourite food, punga fronds.
The islands, part of the ecological restoration campaign Project Island Song, have been pest-free since 2009, and are already home to many endangered birds and reptiles.
Project coordinator Richard Robbins said the release of wētāpunga, the first invertebrates to be reintroduced, was a major milestone.
''It's out of this world,'' he said.
''Because of the name Project Island Song people think it's all about birds, but it's so much more. It's also invertebrates, it's reptiles, it's plants... This is a really special moment, having our first invertebrates. Hopefully we've got many more to come.''
The day did not go entirely to plan, however.
The releases were to have been undertaken one after another, but a delay on Urupukapuka, plus the approach of wild weather, meant the last two had to be completed simultaneously. And at least one wētāpunga tried to make an early break for freedom before it was spotted by Robbins.
''The best laid plans don't always come together, but it's all good. We achieved what we came to do, which was to release the 128 wētapunga," he said.
He was optimistic that the insects would thrive on the islands.
Six or seven more releases were planned over the next three years, although the exact number would depend on how well the zoo's breeding programme went. He expected the number of wētāpunga released would eventually add up to thousands.
The release on Moturua was witnessed by about 40 people, including Project Island Song volunteers and descendants of the Clendon and Maioha families, who lived on the island until the 1960s. Kaumātua Matutaera Clendon, who grew up on Moturua, said he was ''really thrilled'' to witness the next stage in the island's restoration.
Giant wētā are an important but missing part of the New Zealand forest ecosystem. The only natural predator of adult wētāpunga is the ruru (morepork).
