Giant Springtail (Holacanthella spinosa) Photo by By Andy Murray – Holacanthella spinosa (14017688257), CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33671693

Dear Readers, I have always wanted to go to New Zealand – so many interesting plants and flightless birds and fungi! But most of all, there are the invertebrates, and to celebrate them, New Zealand holds a ‘Bug of the Year’ competition, with the results for this year just being announced. So, here are the top three.

In at number three is the Giant Springtail (photo above). You might remember me getting all enthusiastic about springtails a few months ago, but Giant Springtails are found only in New Zealand, and they grow to an impressive 17 mm long. Admittedly that’s not very big, but it is about 17 times longer than your average springtail. Plus, they are very spiny and colourful, some with yellow spines, some with red ones. Sadly, these springtails don’t jump, but instead hang around munching upon dead and decaying wood. They are found only in New Zealand’s old growth forests, where the trees have never been logged, so they are true ‘ancient forest indicators’. Well done, Giant Springtail! Third out of twenty-one nominees is excellent work.

New Zealand Praying Mantis (Orthodera novaezealandiae) Photo by By Bryce McQuillan – DSC_9358E, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6334041

In at number two is the New Zealand Praying Mantis, described as ‘a very active little mantis’ . This is another endemic species, found nowhere else in the wild but in New Zealand. Unlike most praying mantises, the female of the species doesn’t eat the male, although unfortunately there are stories of male New Zealand Praying Mantises mating with females of other, introduced species, who do eat their partners. Could miscommunication get any worse? This insect is a great muncher of flies and other ‘pests’ and has a prodigious appetite for its size (about 40 mm which is smallish for a praying mantis), but alas is affected by pesticides. More mantises and less chemicals, I say.

As you might have gathered from the mention of a pet website above, this species does well in captivity, though I note that the newly-hatched nymphs are said to be extremely fast, and capable of leaping fairly far too. Probably not one for the spare room, then (my husband is tolerant of my funny little ways, but not that tolerant).

So, what won the Bug of the Year 2025? This little critter…

Ngāokeoke | NZ Velvet Worm (Peripatoides novaezealandiae ) Photo by Frupus at https://www.flickr.com/photos/frupus/10853890484)

This is a New Zealand Velvet Worm, yet another endemic species, and a very interesting one. As the name suggests, its skin is velvety to the touch, and it has fifteen pairs of hollow, cone-like ‘legs’ called lobopods. They grow to about 5 cms long, and are usually found beneath or in hollow logs as, like woodlice, they are prone to drying out and can’t manage their own moisture levels – they lose water twice as fast as earthworms, and forty times faster than caterpillars. Earthworms and caterpillars, like velvet worms, breath through trachae, little holes in their sides, but unlike velvet worms they can close the trachae if it gets too dry. Velvet worms are truly creatures of a very limited habitat.

Baby velvet worms are born alive, developing from eggs while in the body of their mother, and in this species they’re pure white when they emerge.

Don’t be taken in by the velvet worm’s rather cuddly exterior, though – this is a voracious nocturnal predator, who tracks their prey and then shoots out a net of slime from their mouth. The slime hardens on contact with air to form a net that encases the prey (which can be anything that you’d find under a log, from a spider to a centipede).

What is a velvet worm, though? Taxonomically it’s thought that velvet worms are closely related to both Arthropods (animals with jointed legs such as spiders, crabs, insects etc) but also to Tardigrades (extremely resilient micro-animals, also known as water bears).

Tardigrade (Water Bear) Photo by By Bryce McQuillan – DSC_9358E, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6334041

So the Velvet Worm, with its squidgy feet, velvety ‘skin’ and lethal slime-throwing, wins New Zealand’s Bug of the Year for this year. And well deserved, I think. Well done, also, to the Entomological Society of New Zealand for publicising the ‘little things that run the world’.

Now, where’s the website for Air New Zealand?