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Hemiandrus
''Hemiandrus'' is a genus of wētā in the family (biology), family Anostostomatidae. In New Zealand they are known as ground wētā due to their burrowing lifestyle. ''Hemiandrus'' wētā are nocturnal, and reside in these burrows during the day. Ground wētā seal the entrance of their burrow during the day with a soil plug or door so that their burrow is concealed. Ground wētā adults are smaller than other types of wētā, with the unusual trait of having either long or short ovipositors, depending on the species. The name of this genus comes from this trait as ''hemi''- mean half and -''andrus'' means male, as the species where the female has a short ovipositor can sometimes be mistaken for a male. This genus has a diverse diet, depending on the species. Taxonomy The genus ''Hemiandrus'' was originally described by Kjell Ernst Viktor Ander, Kjell Ander in 1938. In 2024 a new genus was created (''Anderus'') reducing ''Hemiandrus'' to eleven described species. ''Hemiand ...
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Wētā
Wētā (also spelled weta in English) is the common name for a group of about 100 insect species in the families Anostostomatidae and Rhaphidophoridae endemism, endemic to New Zealand. They are giant wingless insect, flightless cricket (insect), crickets, and some are among the List of largest insects, heaviest insects in the world. Generally nocturnality, nocturnal, most small species are carnivores and scavengers while the larger species are herbivore, herbivorous. Although some List of endemic birds of New Zealand, endemic birds (and tuatara) likely prey on them, wētā are disproportionately preyed upon by introduced mammals, and some species are now critically endangered. Name Wētā is a loanword, from the Māori language, Māori-language word , which refers to this whole group of large insects; some types of wētā have a specific Māori name. In New Zealand English, it is spelled either "weta" or "wētā". The form with Macron (diacritic), macrons is increasingly com ...
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Anderus
''Anderus'' is a genus of forest insects in the family Anostostomatidae (wētā). All ''Anderus'' species are nocturnal, and hide in burrows during the day. In New Zealand they are known as ground wētā due to their burrowing lifestyle. Ground wētā adults are smaller than other types of wētā, and females of all ''Anderus'' species have long ovipositors. Taxonomy The genus ''Anderus'' was named for the Swedish entomologist Kjell Ander in 2024. Six species previously in the genus ''Hemiandrus'' were shown to be sister the Australian winged species ''Transaevum laudatum'', based on analysis of DNA sequences. In the genus ''Anderus'' there are six described species and at least one undescribed species from Rakiura/Stewart Island. Morphology The genus ''Anderus'' includes the smallest wētā species, with adult individual body size no more than 7 millimetres, and weighing less than a gram. These wētā have no tympanum, and instead are able to detect sound through their ...
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Anostostomatidae
Anostostomatidae is a family of insects in the order Orthoptera, widely distributed in the southern hemisphere. It is named Mimnermidae or Henicidae in some taxonomies, and common names include ''king crickets'' in Australia and South Africa, and ''wētā'' in New Zealand (although not all wētā are in Anostostomatidae). Prominent members include the Parktown prawn of South Africa, and the giant wētā of New Zealand. General characteristics Some members of this family can be quite large: Parktown prawn can exceed 6 cm and tree weta can exceed 8 cm in length. Some Australian and Asian anostostomatids have wings (e.g. '' Exogryllacris'', '' Gryllotaurus'', '' Transaevum''), while most lack wings (e.g. '' Anostostoma'', '' Hypocophoides'', '' Penalva''). Males of some species have highly modified heads, which they use in male-male conflicts. Diet The wētā of New Zealand, such as '' Hemideina'', are mostly herbivores that feed on leaves, fruit and flowers, but ...
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Kjell Ernst Viktor Ander
Kjell Ernst Viktor Ander (born 1902 - died 1992) was a Swedish entomologist. Ander was admitted as Doctor of Philosophy at Lund University in 1939. Ander worked as a docent at Lund University from 1937 to 1951. In 1938 Ander described the New Zealand genus ''Hemiandrus'' (Orthoptera; Anostostomatidae Anostostomatidae is a family of insects in the order Orthoptera, widely distributed in the southern hemisphere. It is named Mimnermidae or Henicidae in some taxonomies, and common names include ''king crickets'' in Australia and South Africa, an ...) and made considerable progress sorting the genera from Australia, Africa and America within the family Anostostomatidae. References {{DEFAULTSORT:Ander, Kjell Ernst Viktor 1902 births 1992 deaths Swedish entomologists Academic staff of Lund University 20th-century Swedish zoologists ...
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Giant Wētā
Giant wētā are several species of wētā in the genus ''Deinacrida'' of the family Anostostomatidae. Giant wētā are endemic to New Zealand and all but one species are protected by law because they are considered at risk of extinction. There are eleven species of giant wētā, most of which are larger than other wētā, despite the latter also being large by insect standards. Large species can be up to , not inclusive of legs and antennae, with body mass usually no more than .McIntyre, M. 2001. The Ecology of Some Large Weta Species of New Zealand, Chapter 12, Pp: 225-242. ''In:'' Field, L. d''Biology of weta, King Crickets and their Allies''. CABI Publishing, Oxford One gravid captive female reached a mass of about , making it one of the heaviest insects in the world and heavier than a sparrow. This is, however, abnormal, as this individual was unmated and retained an abnormal number of eggs. The largest species of giant wētā is the Little Barrier Island giant wētā ...
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Nocturnal
Nocturnality is a ethology, behavior in some non-human animals characterized by being active during the night and sleeping during the day. The common adjective is "nocturnal", versus diurnality, diurnal meaning the opposite. Nocturnal creatures generally have highly developed senses of hearing (sense), hearing, olfaction, smell, and specially adapted eyesight. Some animals, such as ferrets, have eyes that can adapt to both low-level and bright day levels of illumination (see metaturnal). Others, such as bushbaby, bushbabies and (some) bats, can function only at night. Many nocturnal creatures including tarsier, tarsiers and some owl, owls have large eyes in comparison with their body size to compensate for the lower light levels at night. More specifically, they have been found to have a larger cornea relative to their eye size than diurnal creatures to increase their : in the low-light conditions. Nocturnality helps wasps, such as ''Apoica flavissima'', avoid hunting in intens ...
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Order (biology)
Order () is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy. It is classified between family and class. In biological classification, the order is a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms and recognized by the nomenclature codes. An immediately higher rank, superorder, is sometimes added directly above order, with suborder directly beneath order. An order can also be defined as a group of related families. What does and does not belong to each order is determined by a taxonomist, as is whether a particular order should be recognized at all. Often there is no exact agreement, with different taxonomists each taking a different position. There are no hard rules that a taxonomist needs to follow in describing or recognizing an order. Some taxa are accepted almost universally, while others are recognized only rarely. The name of an order is usually written with a capital letter. For some groups of organisms, their orders may follow consist ...
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Tree Wētā
Tree wētā (pūtangatanga) are insects in the genus ''Hemideina'' of the family (biology), family Anostostomatidae. The genus is endemic (ecology), endemic to New Zealand. There are seven species within the wētā genus ''Hemideina'', found throughout the country except lowland Otago and Southland, New Zealand, Southland. Because many pūtangatanga species are common and widespread they have been used extensively in studies of ecology and evolution. Habitat Tree wētā are commonly encountered in forests and suburban gardens throughout most of New Zealand. They are up to 40 mm long and most commonly live in holes in trees formed by beetle and moth larvae or where rot has set in after a twig has broken off. The hole, called a gallery, is maintained by the wētā and any growth of the bark surrounding the opening is chewed away. They readily occupy a preformed gallery in a piece of wood (a "wētā motel") and can be kept in a suburban garden as pets. A gallery might house ...
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Family (biology)
Family (, : ) is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy. It is classified between order and genus. A family may be divided into subfamilies, which are intermediate ranks between the ranks of family and genus. The official family names are Latin in origin; however, popular names are often used: for example, walnut trees and hickory trees belong to the family Juglandaceae, but that family is commonly referred to as the "walnut family". The delineation of what constitutes a family—or whether a described family should be acknowledged—is established and decided upon by active taxonomists. There are not strict regulations for outlining or acknowledging a family, yet in the realm of plants, these classifications often rely on both the vegetative and reproductive characteristics of plant species. Taxonomists frequently hold varying perspectives on these descriptions, leading to a lack of widespread consensus within the scientific community ...
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Endemic
Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsewhere. For example, the Cape sugarbird is found exclusively in southwestern South Africa and is therefore said to be ''endemic'' to that particular part of the world. An endemic species can also be referred to as an ''endemism'' or, in scientific literature, as an ''endemite''. Similarly, many species found in the Western ghats of India are examples of endemism. Endemism is an important concept in conservation biology for measuring biodiversity in a particular place and evaluating the risk of extinction for species. Endemism is also of interest in evolutionary biology, because it provides clues about how changes in the environment cause species to undergo range shifts (potentially expanding their range into a larger area or bec ...
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