NZ Long-Horned Insect Crossword

NZ long-horned insect crossword clue. A big one crossword puzzle question in Daily Telegraph Sydney on Thursday, 6 July 2017. 4 letters. Also appear in Herald Sun and The Courier-Mail newspaper.

Answer: WETA

Weta (plural weta) is the common name for a group of about 70 insect species in the families Anostostomatidae and Rhaphidophoridae, endemic to New Zealand. The word is from the Māori wētā, where singular and plural have the same form.

Many weta are large by insect standards and some species are among the largest and heaviest in the world. Their physical appearance is like a katydid, long-horned grasshopper, or cricket, but the hind legs are enlarged and usually very spiny. Many are wingless. Because they can cope with variations in temperature, weta are found in a variety of environments, including alpine, forests, grasslands, caves, shrub lands and urban gardens. They are nocturnal, and all New Zealand species are flightless