Four-banded Flower Bee (Anthophora quadrimaculata)

Dear Readers, in a bid to ‘big-up’ the invertebrates that are so often overlooked when people think about animals, The Guardian has launched a competition to nominate your ‘Invertebrate of the Year’. But how could one possibly choose? From the super-intelligent octopus to the leopard slug, from the enigmatic New Forest Cicada to the innocent froghopper, our gardens and rivers and seas are full to the brim with fascinating life, most of which we know next to nothing about (unless they’re a ‘pest’ and we decide that we want to eradicate them). I wonder how many entomologists began by studying insects that they loved, and ended up planning how to poison them for a living?

I think it would be well worth nominating an insect – I’ve already nominated mine though it was a hard decision. But I think that the sheer range of possible species is almost more important than what wins (though I shall be mightily fed up if it turns out to be the honeybee, which, for all its sterling work is a most unimaginative choice, and practically a domestic animal to boot).

Here are a few that I considered. First up, the four-banded flower bee pictured above, because it is a fast, high-pitched, energetic little critter that is also mostly a Londoner (at the moment at least), and because it has green eyes, and that’s good enough for me.

And then there are jumping spiders in general, and the Fencepost Jumping Spider in particular. I love the way that, when you look at them, they look back at you. I love that they stalk their prey like tigers and then leap several times their body length to capture an unsuspecting fly. And they eat flies! Honestly, how could you resist voting for him?

Fencepost Jumping Spider (Marpissa muscosa)

How about a new arrival, the Jersey Tiger moth, with its Vulcan bomber-shaped wings, and caterpillars that feed on green alkanet, that most divisive of weeds?

Jersey Tiger (Euplagia quadripunctaria)

Or the Emperor Dragonfly, surely the most adept flying insect of all?

Emperor Dragonfly (Anax imperator)

And to go completely off-piste, how about the leopard slug? What’s not to like about a slug that eats other slugs?

Leopard slug (Limax maximus) (Photo by Michal Maňas – Own work, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7984616)

Or, seeing as I am Bug Woman, how about a bug, like the froghopper who protects its youngsters in a bubble of froth?

Meadow froghopper (Philaenus spumarius) Photo by Charles J Sharp – Own work, from Sharp Photography, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38317620)

Or the pondskater, that communicates with other pondskaters by vibrating the surface of the water at a certain frequency?

Pondskaters in flagrante (Photo by Markus Gayda)

But, in the end , it had to be my very favourite bees, the hairy-footed flower bees. There might be a bit of ‘recency effect’ about this, but this species is one of the first to appear in the garden in any numbers, and there’s so much to love about them, from the fact that the sexes are different colours, to the way that they fly around with their tongues poking out, to their loud and determined buzz, to the fact that they have such a short flight season – come summer, they’ll be gone. Don’t let me influence you though! And do vote – the more people vote for their favourite invertebrate, the more people will actually think about the little things that basically run the world.  And let us know your favourite invertebrate, and why. We can have our own little contest here!

Hairy-footed flower bee (Male)

Hairy-footed flower bee (Female)