4 Jan 2024

The world of creepy crawlies

From Summer Times, 11:10 am on 4 January 2024

The New Zealand bug of the year competition is back for its second year.

Aotearoa is home to over 20,000 species of insects and spiders and the competition aims to get people excited about our unique bug life.

Jenny Jandt, also known as 'The Wasp lady', is a  member of the Bug of the Year committee, and a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Zoology at Otago University. 

Jenny is a big fan of iNaturalist which anyone can use to simply take a photo of any insect or plant, upload it to the website and have experts from around the country help identify it.

One of it's New Zealand founders is Dr Jon Sullivan, an ecologist based at Lincoln University in Canterbury.
 

The nominees for 2024's Bug of The Year.

The nominees for 2024's Bug of The Year. Photo: Bug of The Year