The Zombies of New Zealand!
This may sound like the title for an upcoming straight-to-DVD film or offering on the SYFY Channel, but believe it or not, while zombie movies are very popular these days, there are a few places where zombies, of a sort, are much more real than any we might have seen in some scary movies.
Down in New Zealand -- better known for Kiwi, surfers, and sheep -- and on several nearby surrounding islands, live the bizarre insects known as the Weta. ( Weta is one of those fun words like "sheep" that has the same form when singular or plural.) There are about 70 species of Weta, and not a single one of them is as cute or cuddly as a sheep.
On the contrary, they look more like something from a twisted nightmare. Imagine some mad scientist's experiment gone horribly wrong, a mutant hybrid between a cricket and a cockroach, with an enormous head sporting a set of equally huge fangs. Its legs are lavishly covered with very sharp spines which can easily stab a person to the bone, which they are prone to doing, and when provoked, the Weta makes a horrible growling hiss menacing enough to make one wonder whether he should summon an exterminator, or an exorcist! The first thing that first gets the attention of most people, though, is the sheer size of these creatures. Among the largest insects on Earth, they can reach over 6 inches long and weigh almost a quarter-pound!
As if all of this weren't enough to land them a starring role in a B-movie feature, there is one more teensy-tiny little thing about them that you might find strange. This blog features nifty things about the wonders of the natural world, but things really get interesting when Nature acts in a most unnatural way, and it can't get much more unnatural than the life cycle of the Weta.
Most insects will either migrate or hibernate to escape the winter, or at least lay their eggs before dying so that their larvae can hatch in the spring. The Weta, however, skips all of these steps and moves straight on to the dying part. They have a natural anti-freeze in their blood which helps to preserve their bodies against the ravages of being turned into frozen bug-cicles. It isn't potent enough to keep them from becoming frozen solid, but it does keep large ice crystals from forming, which would shred the Weta's cells and destroy them.
When animals hibernate, they breathe every now and then; their hearts beat, their brains keep working, and if prodded they can awaken. The Weta don't hibernate, though. They die. Zero heartbeat, zero breaths, zero brain activity, zero life. They are dead. Exactly how is not yet understood, but that doesn't seem to bother them; for when the temperatures rise, so do the Weta! That's a pretty neat trick for a critter whose brain, the only part unprotected by the antifreeze, has rotted to mushy goo. The old adage of "shoot 'em in the head!" wouldn't work on these zombies. To be fair, though, many insects can get along fine without their brains anyway, having a few nerve clusters called ganglia to run things as a substitute.
Once again they roam the earth for a short time, as what we could fairly call the living dead, until they find mates and breed. Once the eggs are laid, they die once again -- this time for good.
Now you know the shocking truth -- zombies are real!
That's Wild!