Auckland Tree Weta Photo:

Photograph showing a female Auckland Tree Weta eating her shed exoskeleton.

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Female Auckland Tree Weta eating her recently shed exoskeleton.
As I was saying yesterday I'm making a real effort to edit and post photos from my massive backlog of images needing review. As some readers may have noticed a lot of these are of New Zealand native birds. (Today's photo is an exception.) The reason for this is simple. Over the about the last year and a half I've become a lot more interested in New Zealand's native plants and animals. As someone who has spent a large amount of time in the outdoors in NZ, its slightly disappointing just how little I knew. Over this time I've been actively trying to photograph as many birds, reptiles and insects as I can. Learning about them and their habitat as I go. When it comes to such things in NZ, you end up photographing birds. We don't have bears, fox's or snakes. In other words more birds to come. :-)

The photo today is an interesting one of a female Auckland Tree Weta. She is still a juvenile and has just finished moulting. Weta like other insects that have an exoskeleton cannot just "grow bigger". The exoskeleton prevents it. So as they grow they shed the old one. Some (as this girl is doing) will then eat the shed exoskeleton. If you look closely you can see that some of her markings are a lot softer than those on the old "skin". Also usually the stripes are more distinct on tree weta. This photo was taken on the fence of our courtyard. She has taken up residence in a hole in one corner of the fence. There is also a male thats made his home in the diagonally opposite corner. Flash used as weta are of course nocturnal. I only fired off a couple of frames so as not to disturb her too much.

Auckland Tree Weta Photograph.
Image Description:	Photo of a female Auckland Tree Weta eating her recenlty shed exoskeleton. Auckland, New Zealand.
Camera Make:	Nikon Corporation.	Camera Model:	Nikon D300 Digital SLR (DSLR).	Date:	19th April 2010.
Focal Length:	70mm	35mm Equiv Focal Length:	105mm	Aperture:	f/5.6
White Balance:	Manual.	Flash Used:	Yes.	Exposure Time:	1/250th second.
Light Source:	Flash.	Metering Mode:	Spot.	Exposure Mode:	Manual.
ISO:	500		Lens Used:	Nikkor 18-105mm VR.
Accessories Utilised:	Nikon MB-D10 battery grip, Scandisk Extream IV CompactFlash. Nikon EN-EL3e Li-ion battery pack.
Software:	Converted from RAW with Nikon Capture NX. Post editing with The Gimp 2.6.
Photo edits:	Crop. Levels, selective sharpen. Border then scale.
Photographer Comments:		Taken in our courtyard, Auckland city.
Model Credit:	Auckland Tree Weta.	Photograph Copyright: ©	Glen Webber 2010. All rights reserved.

And there will be more photos tomorrow too! Cheers, Glen. Like my photos? Follow me on twitter @glen_co_nz. Thoughts or opinion? leave a comment below, by clicking the comments link.