Mark is a former park ranger who found the world’s biggest insect so far: this giant weta is so big that it can actually eat carrots.

This little critter was found on an island off New Zealand, and it’s one of the few survivors from its species, which were almost wiped out by rats accidentally introduced by Europeans.

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 weighs the equivalent to three mice. 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.”

It gives me great pleasure to hear that they put it exactly back where they found it, instead of taking it for whatever purpose.

Mark, from Colorado, America, 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.”