The world's biggest ever insect found in New Zealand

An explorer has found the biggest insect ever on record - so large it can eat a carrot. She's called a Weta Bug and has a huge wing span of seven inches and weighs as much as three mice. Former park ranger Mark Moffett, 55, discovered the cricket-like creature up a tree on New Zealand's Little Barrier Island.

He spent two days searching for the creepy crawly which were thought to be extinct after Europeans brought rats to the island many years ago. American Mark, 53, said: "Three of us walked the trails of this small island for two nights scanning the vegetation for a giant weta. We spent many hours with no luck finding any at all, before we saw her up in a tree.

"The giant weta is the largest insect in the world, and this is the biggest one ever found. She enjoyed the carrot so much she seemed to ignore the fact she was resting on our hands and carried on munching away. She would have finished the carrot very quickly, but this is an extremely endangered species and we didn't want to risk indigestion.

"After she had chewed a little I took this picture and we put her right back where we found her." Mark, from Colorado, added: "We bug lovers hear a lot of people who think insects are inferior in some way because of their size, so it was great to see such a big insect. This became all the more amazing when we realized that this was the largest insect recorded."