KEY POINTS:
Would a man walk 15km in the middle of the night for the one he loved?
He would if he was a weta.
Landcare Research scientists have been tracking the nocturnal travels of 20 Cook Strait giant weta transferred to the Karori wildlife sanctuary in Wellington from Somes Island.
The insects were fitted with tiny one-gram transmitters and their movements were recorded over 50 nights.
Males moved over an average of 96m of ground a night and female weta moved 33m on average.
One particularly motivated male, Weta Number 70, regularly walked at least 250m each night, but his best effort was 295m - the equivalent of 15km for a human being.
Landcare scientist Corinne Watts said the researchers believed males walked further because they were looking for females to mate with.
"The females are also three times the size of the males, so it takes a lot more effort for them to move," she said. The giant weta looked for each other at night and mated during the day, and they tended to swap partners regularly.
But what they lacked in fidelity they made up for in stamina - mating usually lasted 10 to 12 hours.
Dr Watts said the transmitter study, funded by special effects firm Weta Workshop, was the first of its kind.
It was also the first time giant weta had been transferred from one of their island sanctuaries to mainland New Zealand. Cook Strait giant weta became extinct on the mainland more than 100 years ago, mostly because of introduced predators and habitat destruction or interference.
Dr Watts said the insects were New Zealand's biggest invertebrates but at a top weight of 35g were still highly vulnerable.
With the success of the study, plans were now in place to transfer another 450 weta on to mainland sites over the next four years.
- NZPA
