A wētāpunga, or giant wētā, dropped a huge weta (excrement, dung) live on AM on Tuesday morning.
The endangered native insect was featured in a segment with Auckland Zoo's ectotherm curator, Don McFarlane, who joined the show to discuss wētāpunga being relocated to the mainland after nearly two centuries.
"Wētāpunga produce a very large faecal pellet," McFarlane told AM.
"It's a nice kind of organic smell."
As McFarlane was discussing the benefits that wētāpunga bring to the ecosystem, the female insect on-camera didn't shy away - letting out a pretty large greenish-brown dropping, coincidentally known as a weta in Te Reo.
"It looks a little bit like an edamame bean," said AM reporter Emma Olsen.
McFarlane said he often gets asked why people should care about the large insects.
"You'd never ask a Kiwi why care about kiwi? It's the automatic [response] is they're unique, they're endangered, they're nearly extinct."
He told AM reporter Emma Olsen we must do everything we can to protect all native species in Aotearoa.
"They're taonga - they're treasure. All of that applies to wētāpunga and wētā and anything that's endemic to New Zealand, and of course a lot of them are in peril," McFarlane said.
Wētā evolved over millions of years alongside native predators in Aotearoa - including birds, tuatara, and bats.
But they were nearly obliterated after early European/Pākehā settlers introduced predators like hedgehogs, norway rats, stoats, and cats in the early 1800s, according to the Department of Conservation.
"They haven't evolved alongside them [introduced predators] so they've been very much caught off-guard," McFarlane told AM.
Non-native predators like cats and hedgehogs have since wiped out thousands of different native species.
"The last wētā collected from the mainland before they were wiped out by rats and habitat modification was in about 1838 from Paihia."
"It's fantastic we're able to step in here and industrialise the breeding process."
He said 7000 wētāpunga have hatched since Auckland Zoo's 2012 programme started and been relocated to eight different islands - up from just one island beforehand.
Last Wednesday, more than 300 wētā were released on to three islands in Pēwhairangi/Bay of Islands.
"Every release is special and even talking about it I can feel the hairs on the back of my neck go up, because it's a thrill to do it," said McFarlane.
The conservation team collect six males and six males, every four years, from Te Hauturu o Toi/Little Barrier Island for the breeding project.
"Of course, it's very important they get on and do the necessary business."
The weta (dung) from wētā gives lots of important nutrients to soil.
"That's a good reason why we are restoring these animals back. [To] restore the forests!"
The wētāpunga is the largest species of giant wētā, and one of the largest insects in the world, weighing as much as a small bird and the size of an adult's palm of the hand.
Wētā evolved before the dinosaurs into more than 100 different species exclusively in Aotearoa, the only country in the world where they're found.
"As someone said earlier - bugs rule the world," said Olsen, but "I'm gonna leave her with Don."
Watch the full video above.
