A large ground weta that is confined to the Snares Islands south of Stewart Island. It inhabits petrel burrows and comes out at night to capture other insects and scrape the many cadavers of dead birds or their broken eggshells. It could well be called an insect vulture. Like H. maculifrons it lays its eggs in the ground and the hatchlings must feed and grow in an environment which has several other insect predators and ground birds.