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Article History

Received: 12 August 2019

Accepted: 19 February 2020

First Online: 25 February 2020

Compliance with ethical standards

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: The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

: As per New Zealand animal welfare legislation, no animal ethics approval was required to complete the research outlined in this manuscript. Despite this, all efforts were taken to provide wētā with optimal living conditions. All animals were provided with adequate food and water to sustain healthy growth, which was measured every 5 days by weighing each wētā. Signs of abnormal behaviour (emergence in the light, no emergence for 3 + days, no sign of eating or defecating) were monitored over the entire duration of the study. If any individual appeared stressed or unwell (including loss of 20% or more of their body weight, or abnormal behaviours), they would have been removed from the trial and humanely euthanised; however, this did not occur during the study. Wētā were provided with shelter (a flax refuge), native leaves, and a climbing stick which also served as a site for immature wētā to hang during moulting. Conditions in the animal holding room were set to match natural conditions at the collection site as closely as possible. Wētā were not released back into the wild at the end of the study period, as they were collected from a different area than they were tested in. Instead, they were maintained in the University of Otago Department of Zoology animal containment facility, under similar conditions as they were kept during the experiment.