1/14/2022: Florida false weta female!
It seems I do a lot of blog posts about Florida trip content, but that’s because there’s always a new Florida project getting established to discuss.
During the March 2021 Florida trip I was introduced to Tafalisca eleuthera, a surprisingly large and under documented bush cricket from the Keys. It seems the size reports for this species aren’t the most reliable as adults are variable in size and some can pass 50 millimeters, which was quite the thrill to see in the field.
I had sparing success breeding the initial Florida group, and had actually given up until I found a nymph that had hatched out on my kitchen windowsill where I’d left the egg cup after forgetting/abandoning the contents.
I’ve been presented another opportunity to work with these as Alan and Kai found 4 nymphs on their fall expedition, though it was initially suspected they were all male. Now that the nymphs have gained substantial size I can confirm at least one female, which is very exciting as I feel I’ve nailed the husbandry overall.
Despite being mangrove leaf eaters in the wild, it seems these are not required at all for their well-being, and the group has been doing well on a diet of primarily fish flakes. They’re quirky, bulky, large orthopterans, and it seems there are many potential (and varying quality) common names for a relatively unknown insect like this. Most of their range is centered around Florida, and their size and morphology immediately remind one of the wetas of New Zealand. Any conversation regarding how cool and interesting they are has referenced back to this, so I’ve taken to calling them Florida false wetas.
Hopefully by fall I’ll have a nice colony going and some available, although the eggs do take a while to hatch.
One last pertinent note considering I tend to put the photos at the end of the blog posts is that I always try to photograph invertebrates in their entirety. This can be tricky with species that have long antennae, as many roach naturally do, and it irks me endlessly to have to crop images when the antennae are clearly detracting from the composition or ease of photo taking. Tafalisca eleuthera have ridiculously long antennae (perhaps some of the longest among all insects relative to body length?), and so it pained me to crop the below photo for the sake of focusing on the nymph’s body.
-Kyle