Adult huhu beetles cannot eat, only live for 2 weeks and in Hamilton a cat ate one and was dead the next day.
They’re not great at coordinated movement and if you disturb a huhu beetle in the daytime, it’s very reluctant to take flight, and in the evening it takes up to thirty minutes to get properly airborne, with a lot of stumbling walks and bumbling flights and crash-landings as it warms up.
Huhu beetle + huhu grub Photo: Left: John Marris , CC BY-SA 4.0 ; Right DOC
