Dan Kitwood / Getty Images
A Green Shield Bug walks on flowers in a garden in Brixton on Oct. 10, in London, England. Many UK insects are struggling after a particularly wet and cold summer according to the wildlife charity 'The Buglife Conservation.'
Slideshow: Falling for Autumn
Mark Moffett / Minden / Solent
Entomologist Mark Moffett found this carrot-eating giant weta in a tree on New Zealand's Little Barrier Island. The cricketlike critter weighs 2.5 ounces (71 grams) and has a length of 7 inches (17.8 centimeters).
Is this the world's biggest bug? As with all superlatives, it depends on your definition. But the sight of a New Zealand giant weta chomping down on a carrot surely has to give you the creeps, even if it's rivaled by other giant creepy crawlies.
This particular species of the cricketlike creature — known as a giant weta or wetapunga to the Maori, and as Deinacrida heteracantha to scientists — is found only in protected areas such as New Zealand's Little Barrier Island. That's where Mark ("Doctor Bugs") Moffett, an entomologist and explorer at the Smithsonian Institution, found the specimen after two nights of searching.
"The giant weta is the largest insect in the world, and this is the biggest one ever found," Britain's Daily Mail quoted Moffett as saying. "She weighs the equivalent to three mice. ... She enjoyed the carrot so much she seemed to ignore the fact she was resting on our hands and carried on munching away. She would have finished the carrot very quickly, but this is an extremely endangered species, and we didn't want to risk indigestion."
The carrot-crunching cricket went viral today, and now questions are starting to emerge about the "biggest bug" label. The information accompanying the picture lists the insect's weight at 2.5 ounces (71 grams) and its length at 7 inches (17.8 centimeters, supposedly for wingspan, but keep reading).
The New Zealand-based news site Stuff.co.nz checked that with Landcare Research entomologist Thomas Buckley. "From the picture, it's a female, but it just looks like an average-sized one of that species," Buckley said.
Even the biggest giant weta has its rivals in the insect world. By some accounts, goliath beetles can reach a weight of 100 grams (3.5 ounces) during their larval stage and achieve a wingspan of nearly 10 inches (25 centimeters). The White Witch moth, meanwhile, has a wingspan of up to 12 inches (31 centimeters), which is wider than the wings of a sparrow.
But if you confine yourself strictly to adult insects, and define "big" in terms of weight, Moffett appears to have a good case. He told me in an email that the giant weta he found counts as the "largest one weighed, as far as I have seen recorded anywhere."
Now, if your definition of a "bug" takes in more than insects — say, the giant crustaceans known as isopods, which are super-sized versions of rolypoly bugs — then you're talking about bugs of truly horrific proportions. Do you have tales of monster bugs to share? Add them as comments below.
Update for 9:30 p.m. ET Dec. 2: Some of the reports about this giant weta make it sound as if the darn thing might bite somebody's finger off, but that's bogus. This CafeTerra posting describes the bug as a vegetarian and "the gentle giant of the insect world." They survive only in protected environments because they've been driven to near-extinction by rats and other invasive predators on New Zealand's main islands. The Kiwi Conservation Club says the bug is a "docile creature and does not kick or bite." Some reports have referred to the giant weta as having a 7-inch wingspan, but Moffett told me that the insect is "wingless, or virtually so." It's so heavy that it can't jump. It's so big that it can't easily hide from predators. And yes, it's edible.
Update for 11:30 p.m. ET Dec. 2: Moffett shed more light on the "biggest bug" question in a follow-up email: "I did not measure anything but the weight (one should correctly call it the 'world's heaviest adult insect'), but a rough estimate from the picture suggests an outstretched leg might be 7 inches. The weta is essentially wingless: no wings to see at all, let alone a seven-inch wing. [As to size:] I've seen a walking stick nearly 19 inches long in Sarawak, Malaysia, but it weighs next to nothing!"
Update for 3 p.m. ET Dec. 4: Uh-oh ... The New Zealand Herald quotes entomologist Ruud Kleinpaste as saying that the heaviest giant weta on record weighed 72 grams, which would be a gram heavier than Moffett's carrot-eating friend. Kleinpaste also said it's not unusual for the bugs to munch on carrots. But even if Moffett's weta is an unremarkable "wee 'un," Kleinpaste is glad for the publicity: "I think it's wonderful as long as weta get the attention and not that idiot American."
More weird tales of the insect world:
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Gerald Herbert / AP
Stephanie Smith, an educator at the Audubon Insectarium in New Orleans, holds a plate of boiled mealworms, left, and a cornbread stuffing with mealworms, for visitors to sample Thanksgiving-inspired foods with insects at the Audubon Insectarium Friday, Nov. 11, 2011.
Gerald Herbert / AP
Zack Lemann, visitor programs manager at the Audubon Insectarium in New Orleans, and Stephanie Smith, an educator at the bug museum, prepare cranberry sauce with wax worms, cricket pumpkin pie, and turkey with cornbread and mealworm stuffing for visitors to sample Thanksgiving-inspired foods with insects.
Would you try this at home?
AP reports:
Gerald Herbert / AP
Cornbread stuffing with mealworms.
Anyone who wants can try this at home, said Zack Lemann, the museum's visitor program manager. "These particular recipes follow an old adage for beginning bug chefs: if a recipe calls for small bits or chopped pieces of fruits, vegetables, nuts, or meat, you can add or substitute insects," he said.
So just take a favorite recipe and add bugs, making sure they've been raised in a pesticide-free environment. "Mealworms are usually boiled for a good 10 minutes. Wax worms are simmered for only three minutes or so. The softer body of wax worms will burst if boiled for too long, so we use less heat and less time when cooking them," he wrote in an email.
"Crickets are done at 350 for 30 minutes and stirred into the pie mix."
Read the full story here.
Gerald Herbert / AP
Corinne Hufft of Dallas, feeds her daughter Ella Hufft, 3, a boiled mealworm.
Peter Kohalmi / AFP - Getty Images
Long-tailed mayflies (Palingenia longicauda) dance around each other in large groups on the surface of the Tisza river near Tiszafured, Hungary, early in the evening on June 13.
According to AFP, mayfly larvae live underwater for three years, and then millions of these short-lived insects engage in a frantic rush to mate and reproduce before they perish in just a few hours during 'Tiszaviragzas' - the Tisza blooming season - which lasts from late spring to early summer every year. The species was once widespread across Europe, but has now disappeared from much of the continent.
Hoang Dinh Nam / AFP - Getty Images
A vendor of fried insects handing over a plate of fried crickets at a local market in Vientiane. Raising crikets for foods is seen as a solution to the malnutrition in the poor landlock country where a great number of people, especially children, suffer from.
Hoang Dinh Nam / AFP - Getty Images
Thai entomologist Yupa Hamboosong and her Lao student Khammoi Phommavong inspecting crickets being raised in bassins at a lab-farm of Lao National University in Vientiane.
Hoang Dinh Nam / AFP - Getty Images
Students inspecting crickets being raised in bassins at a lab-farm of Lao National University in Vientiane.
Would you eat bugs and insects?
Peter Macdiarmid / Getty Images
A girl allows a butterfly to be placed on her nose at the Sensational Butterflies exhibition at the Natural History Museum on April 6 in London, England. The exhibition is divided up into five sensory zones exploring how butterflies see, hear, taste, smell and touch. The display containing hundreds of butterflies runs from April 12 to September 11.
Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images
School children play with butterflies at the Sensational Butterflies exhibition at the Natural History Museum on April 6 in London, England. The exhibition is divided up into five sensory zones exploring how butterflies see, hear, taste, smell and touch. The display containing hundreds of butterflies runs from April 12 to September 11.
Peter Macdiarmid / Getty Images
Chrysalises hang at the Sensational Butterflies exhibition at the Natural History Museum on April 6 in London, England.
Peter Macdiarmid / Getty Images
A girl allows a butterfly to be placed on her nose at the Sensational Butterflies exhibition at the Natural History Museum on April 6 in London, England.
What fun for these kids. For more on the exhibit click here.
Oh my! To save the planet would you slash your food budget and eat bugs? You can read the full story here and check out the creepy crawly video below.
Jerry Lampen / Reuters
Mealworms and spring onions are stir-fried to be used in a quiche at the Rijn IJssel school for chefs in Wageningen Jan. 12. All you need to do to save the rainforest, improve your diet, better your health, cut global carbon emissions and slash your food budget is eat bugs. Mealworm quiche, grasshopper springrolls and cuisine made from other creepy crawlies is the answer to the global food crisis, shrinking land and water resources and climate-changing carbon emissions, Dutch scientist Arnold van Huis says. To attract more insect-eaters, Van Huis and his team of scientists at Wageningen have worked with a local cooking school to produce a cookbook and suitable recipes.
Jerry Lampen / Reuters
Max Kipp, a student at the Rijn IJssel school for chefs, stir-fries mealworms with spring onions to be used in a quiche in Wageningen, Jan. 12.
Jerry Lampen / Reuters
A student prepares mealworm quiches at the Rijn IJssel school for chefs in Wageningen, Jan. 12.
Jerry Lampen / Reuters
A participant in the lecture, Duygu Tatar, reacts after eating an insect snack (meal worm quiche) during a break in the lecture given by Professor Arnold van Huis at the University of Wageningen, Jan.12.
July 24, 2009: Crumbled meal worms. Sauted crickets. Ant eggs. Hungry yet? Marc Dennis, founder of Insects Are Food, explains how eating these dishes could help the environment. Msnbc.com's Becca Field puts it to the test.
Julian Stratenschulte / AFP - Getty Images
This combination of three photos shows a robin eating spiders in the snow-covered landscape in the western German city of Essen on Tuesday. Many parts of the country are experiencing cold weather with snowfall.
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