King cricket
| Anostostomatidae | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Poor Knights giant weta, Deinacrida fallai Overall length 20 cm (8 in) |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Clade: | Euarthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Orthoptera |
| Suborder: | Ensifera |
| Superfamily: | Stenopelmatoidea |
| Family: |
Anostostomatidae Saussure, 1859 |
| Subfamilies and genera | |
|
See text. |
|
See text.
Anostostomatidae is a family of insects in the order Orthoptera, widely distributed in the southern hemisphere. It is named Mimnermidae or Henicidae in some taxonomies, and common names include king crickets in South Africa and weta in New Zealand (although not all weta are in Anostostomatidae). Prominent members include the Parktown prawn of South Africa, and the giant weta of New Zealand. The distribution of this family reflects a common ancestry before the fragmenting of Gondwana.
By virtue of their ability to cope with variations in temperature, members of the family Anostostomatidae can be found in a variety of environments including alpine, forests, grasslands, shrub lands and urban gardens. The family is widely distributed across southern hemisphere lands including South America, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. They are nocturnal and many are flightless although several flying species exist in Australia. The diet is diverse, rarely consisting of leaves, and more commonly a combination of other insects, fungi, dead animals, and fruit. An Australian king cricket can overpower and eat funnel-web spiders.
At least one Cretaceous fossil of an anostostomatid-like cricket is known from Australia but has not been described. The modern distribution of this family in the southern hemisphere has led to speculation that members of this group owe their distribution to the breakup of the ancient supercontinent Gondwana. This may be the case but evidence for the large scale if not total submergence of continental crust in the New Zealand and New Caledonian region in the Oligocene, indicates the possibility that weta have arrived in these locations at least, since re-emergence of land. The fact that anostostomatid crickets also occur on some Japanese islands supports this possibility.
The best-known species is the Parktown prawn, not to be confused with the well-known Koringkrieke or armoured ground crickets, which never have been in the family Anostostomatidae.
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Wikipedia