This is the common big-headed weta widely distributed through the southern half of the North Island, Marlborough Sounds, Westland to as far south as the Eglington Valley in Fiordland. It favours holes and cavities of a wide variety of trees. In Westland is is especially abundant in the broken and dead stems of tutu, Coriaria arborea . In the North Island it is often found in urban shrubbery.