Attack of the Giant Huhu Beetles
We've been out for eight nights trying to catch another bat. So far we've caught four birds and at least FORTY huge huhu beetles. Last night we tried catching in a new place where Kerry had detected over 200 bat passes in 2 hours with her Automatic Bat Monitor (ABM). The bats were definitely there. I even saw one fly within a meter of the mist net and turn right around. One bat flew up and down the road for about a half hour, but never into the net.
We did, however, have incredibly unwelcome success in catching huhu beetles. They are the largest beetle in New Zealand and their giant grubs are a traditional Maori delicacy. These beetles are 50-80% of the size of our bats! Our 9 m x 30 ft mist net was chock full of them. This was a whole lot funnier before we realized we had to remove each and every one of them to put the nets away. They got themselves impossibly tangled in the fine mesh and it looked like some of them had actually chewed through the net. We couldn't just grab and yank them out for two reasons: 1) that would tear holes in the mist net. 2) they have big scary looking mandibles (mouth parts)!
Most of you know I am not easily grossed out by animals. I love all sorts of critters of ill repute. But having to extract these huge beetles from the net by ripping apart their oversized insect bodies while avoiding their mouthparts was just gross. I've always hated the sound of crunching exoskeleton. They even kept wiggling in pieces while the pale insect goo oozed out of their detatched abdomens. The ones we extacted whole were immediately stepped on to prevent them from flying back into the net. It took us an hour to get the net down compared to the 15 minutes it usually takes us.
A squashed one with my finger for scale.
We've ruled out this location for catching bats.
Carrie
P.S. On an unrelated note, it's just us and Kerry again. Kirsten had to unexpectedly leave on Monday because her brother was in an accident at home. She's trying to sort things out in Auckland so she can head back to Austria ASAP to be with her family.
2 comments:
MA and I love the pictures -- the more squiahed bugs and opposums, the better. Extracting giant critters one by one from your bat-less net seems a bummer. Better luck next time.
Wow! That is crazy!
Do I say that for every post? I probably do and then realize I've said that before.
It sounds like the bats are actively avoiding the nets. Is that right? If so don't you have a sampling bias in that the ones you do catch aren't as good at detecting nets?
That is pretty amazing that you managed to pick out all those juicy beetle pieces. The more I think about it, the more I am sure that I am freaked out by almost anything that is alive and excessively large. Giant ferns, giant beetles, even sunflowers are kinda scary when experienced up close.
Jeez, I'm kinda freaked out right now just thinking about sunflowers.
Good luck with the hunt!
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