my first boy .....

 

Last week while out weta wandering, I stumbled across my first harem.
Weta are interesting in that they live together in harems. One male lives with a number of females. Females choose their breeding partner in the weta world.
Female weta like their males to have big heads..... I thought this was quite funny until I saw my first male. OMG his head was so big he it looked like he could hardly pick it up!
The size of the head apparently indicates good breeding stock and the girls all line up for these particular boys.



My first male weta (left), it's easy to identify between males and females. If you look between their back legs, males have two short pointy bits while a female has one long pointy bit. The other easy to identify feature is the size of their head.

I had been wondering how I would feel when I opened a roost and saw multiple weta in there. Boy did my heart beat pretty fast! Not as fast as one of the girls though, she legged it out through one of the side entrances to the roost. So there would have been 5 females and 1 male residing in the roost.


The first things I saw when I opened the roost.

I chose to measure the male first as I really wanted to have a close look at him. I figured if the rest ran away while I was working with him, I had already had experience working with the girls. I am starting to think that there are not as many male weta around, OR... that there are lots of males in natural roosts. (I think I have just made a hypothesis of sorts ...)

Will let you know what I find ....