A cricket the size of your hand just clawed its way back from the brink

The wetapunga — the giant weta of Little Barrier Island, believed to be the world's heaviest insect — was once squeezed onto a single island after rats and cats wiped it out across New Zealand's North Island. Surveys showed too few to move directly, so conservationists raised a breeding colony at Auckland Zoo and Butterfly Creek, feeding the young insects on fresh foliage in communal creches. Fifteen years later, some 11,000 wetapunga have been released across eight predator-free islands and two fenced mainland sanctuaries, with the backing of the Maori iwi Ngati Manuhiri — and the species has graduated from Nationally Endangered to Nationally Increasing. Four wild-born generations are now hopping on their own.