Juvenile weta

We have been collecting bamboo stakes from the field that are no longer necessary to hold up previous plantings. These will be repainted with coloured tips and reused next planting season. They were being stored in a garage. In the evening when the garage was being inspected to secure it for the night little weta were noticed emerging from some of the bamboo stakes. Seven in total were collected and returned to the gully to carry on their lives. The photo of a weta sitting on a finger shows how small these juvenile weta are. It is interesting to see how long the antennas are. They are out of all proportion to the size of their small bodies.