You may be trying to comfort yourself that that is a child's hand and a baby carrot. It is not.
That's the largest specimen ever found of an insect called the weta, and has been declared the largest insect in the world in terms of weight. It has a wingspan of 7 inches and weighs 71g, which I am not going to translate into a weight system that I understand because I am afraid of the answer.
You can read more about it here, if you dare. You can also read more about Mark Moffett, who discovered it, here. The news coverage refers to him oddly as a "nature-lover" and "former park ranger," but he's actually a rather famous naturalist, explorer, and photographer.
-Wombat (No Relation)
Dec 1, 2011
The stuff of nightmares
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8 comments:
Awesome find.
A heads up: the "here, if you dare" link seems to sending us to the wrong place, though it includes the intended URL.
I have no idea what was going on there but I seem to have fixed it. Thanks!
Peter Jackson's New Zealand based special effects company, Weta Digital, is named after these bugs. He also made some REALLY giant wetas for one scene in his King Kong remake:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTWYQhTT388
I only made it through about 25 seconds of that. Maybe I could have stood the bugs, but those other things...
Yikes, glad they aren't in the U.S.!!!!!!
He looks cold. That Weta needs a sweata'.
This story was also reported here http://www.stuff.co.nz/oddstuff/6076325/Whopping-weta-wows-the-world and included the following sentence:
'The nocturnal creature, known as wetapunga or "god of ugly things", is the largest sub-species of the giant weta, weighing the same as a small bird.'
Yeah! Your blog has found its patron saint!
Excellent!
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