Weta Information Report Term 3

This is a piece of writing that we did for our mini beast topic when we were learning about weta. We had to do a information report.

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Weta Information Report

What Is A Weta?

Weta are native to New Zealand/Aotearoa. Weta are invertebrates and they have an exoskeleton. An invertebrate is an animal that has its skeleton on the outside wich is called an exoskeleton. They don't have a spine. Weta look similar to crickets. They can grow up to 10cm. Weta can weigh up to 30g. There are 70 different types of weta but 5 main ones which are cave weta, ground weta, giant weta, tree weta, tusked weta. Weta are very important to New Zealand/Aotearoa.

Where do weta live?

Depending on the type of weta they will live in different places. The tree weta live in holes in the tree, rotten logs and sometimes your wood pile. The ground weta lives in burrows in the ground. Cave weta live in sea coast caves along the sea. The tusked weta are extremely rare and are ground dwellers. The giant weta are only found on island sanctuaries.

What Do Weta Eat?

Some weta are carnivorous and some are herbivorous. Weta feed at night. They eat flowers, fruit, lichen, leaves and seed heads. Ground and tusked weta are carnivorous they eat small invertebrates like snails and worms. 

Reproduction

They breed in spring/kōanga and summer/raumati and the following spring the babies hatch and grow. Male tree weta may share a hole with a group of females and have to fight off other males. In autumn/ngahuru the females lay 6-10 eggs at a time all together laying 300 hundred eggs.

What are wetas threats

Before humans weta had two threats which were the tuatara and birds. Now they have way more wich are cats, hedgehogs, rats, bats and birds. They only protections is there hard exoskeleton.

Are Weta Social?

Male tree weta live in a hole with a group of females. All the other types of weta live on their own. Some weta rub their legs to make a chirping sound that's how they talk

Weta may be ugly but they are important to New Zealand and we should treat them with respect. We have to make sure that weta have a habit to live in by only cutting down the trees that we need.

By Sapphire