The genus Macropathus belongs to the Sub-Family Maeropathinae Karny, 1928, of the Family Rhaphidophoridae. This family is placed in the Super-Family Gryllacridoidea, belonging to the Sub-Order Ensifera of the Order Orthoptera. The Rhaphidophoridae are hydrophilous insects of which a number of types have become cave-dwelling, although some occur in the open. Those insects living in caves are often found in groups of several hundred, while those living in the open are usually solitary or in pairs. Colloquially the members of the genus Macropathus are known as “Cave-wetas”, because of their superficial resemblance to Hemideina, the tree-weta, which belongs to another family, the Henicidae. “Weta” is the Maori name for these insects, but it has become adopted into the everyday language of the Europeans. The chief characteristics of the family consist of lack of elytra, lack of auditory tympanums and possession of long, compressed tarsi without euplantulae.

The Rhaphidophoridae have a long fossil history, and it is interesting to note that Dolichopoda and Troglophilus, both closely related to Macropathus, are the only two survivors of an ancient sub-tropical fauna of European Orthoptera dating from the Tertiary. An incising of Troglophilus on a fragment of a bison's bone found in the “Trois Frères “cave at Ariège in the French Pyrenees is the most ancient evidence we have of real cave fauna.

The group has world-wide distribution, but is especially well represented in New Zealand, where there is an unusually rich Orthopteran fauna. The distribution of Macropathus throughout New Zealand has been found to extend from Auckland to Fiordland. Special attention has been paid to the Wellington area where M. filifer has been extensively studied. Examination of specimens collected from the Waitakere Ranges and Fiordland has shown the genus Maero-

pathus to include at least three species. The Auckland species M. acanthocera was first recorded by Milligan (1926), but it has not as yet been adequately described; while the Fiordland specimens belong to a new species.