Discover the world's heaviest insects

A natural lover in New Zealand stumbles upon a weta, the largest and largest insect in the world ever known.

Marvel at insects that are heavier than mice

Looking for insects on an island with a few friends, former 53-year-old ranger Mark Moffett discovers the weta crickets on a tree trunk.

Weta crickets eat delicious carrots.(Source: Daily Mail)

It has wingspan of nearly 18cm, and 71g heavier than a sparrow, and weighs three times as much as a mouse. Weta crickets have been recognized as the heaviest insect ever found .

After Mark finds the weta cricket, he feeds him a carrot and returns it to the place he found.

'He ate the carrot so well that he forgot the fact that it was left in our hands. But this is an extremely aggressive insect and we don't want to risk it, so after it took a few bites, we took some pictures and dropped it to the right place to find it , 'Mark said.

The name Weta is derived from the way the Maori people call this insect - Wetapunga , meaning God of ugly things , funny translation is Holy Bad.

The special thing of this cricket is that during 200 hundred million years they have almost no evolution. Their shape is almost kept intact until now.Weta crickets are also classified by biologists as the world's most aggressive species. They can chase all mice and bite them. However, this only happens when they feel threatened.

Weta crickets are only on New Zealand 's Little Barrier Island , although there are up to 70 other weta crickets across the country. Giant Weta crickets lost their habitat in the land because their enemies were accidental rats brought here by Europeans.

There are more than 70 species of crickets in New Zealand, but weta crickets have the largest weight. (Source: Daily Mail)

There are more than 70 species of easy Weta. These species have the most intimate relationship with giant Weta crickets including the carnivorous Weta, Weta trees, and Weta han g. Alpine Weta can stay frozen during winter, and only comes back to work when spring comes. Like other insects, Weta crickets do not have lungs but breathe with their exoskeleton because there are holes connected to the oxygen pump for each cell in the insect's body. Weta crickets are located right above its knees, below the knee joints on the front legs.

Among them is the large Weta cricket, which is an endemic species of New Zealand, which is huge in size and weighs an average of 70 grams, which is one of the heaviest insects in the world, more than a sparrow. Without counting the legs and beard, this species is about 10 cm long. They love carrots. Although called crickets but because of its size and excess weight, Weta crickets cannot fly. Giant Weta crickets are considered extinct in New Zealand in the 1960s because rats love this dish very much.

Giant Weta crickets are kept by conservation groups to increase the number of these species. Therefore, many crickets were born at Auckland Zoo in 2013. In May 2014, the Zoo brought 150 giant Weta crickets back to the wild on Tiritiri Tiritiri Matangi island .