I first noticed ‘winged weta’ in 2016 when I took this photo of a pterapotrechus moulting. They are particularly abundant in Selwyn Bush, Kohimarama where community groups are doing pest management and restoration. I wondered how many times introduced winged weta were being mis-recorded in tracking tunnels as our native weta. No foot prints have been recorded to compare so my son and I collected six (males and females, small range in sizes) in less than five minutes. We dropped them onto a board with footprint tracking ink, photo above.
Here are some closeups of the hind leg footprints.
The footprints look very distinctive to me so we probably don’t have to try and understand walking pattern (see ‘Footprint Identification of Weta and Other Insects‘). I think this must be because the tarsal pads are paired for winged weta and not in native weta. This will make identification of winged weta quite easy going forward.