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#teamgiantspringtail

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Frank Ashwood
Public

Podium finish for the Giant Springtail!

Congratulations to Team Velvet Worm for a hard-fought and well-deserved victory - making Ngãokeoke the 2025 New Zealand Bug of the Year!

It's brilliant to see a soil/deadwood invertebrate win the contest (they live alongside giant springtails!). Having two soil inverts in the top three winners is amazing awareness raising for soil biodiversity across the country and the world!

Thanks for all the support for #TeamGiantSpringtail, we'll be back to win another year (but maybe I'll take next year off, it was a lot of work). Nice to see my photos in the Guardian article on the contest too: theguardian.com/world/2025/feb

An image of a finalists podium, with the velvet worm as gold medalist, nz praying mantis as silver, and giant springtail in bronze.
An infographic with a pie chart and map showing the breakdown of votes for the bug of the year contest.
A screenshot of a news article on The Guardian newspaper online, detailing the big of the year contest with one of my photographs of a velvet worm as the header image.
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Frank Ashwood
Public

We're all on tenterhooks waiting for the results to be announced tomorrow for the NZ Bug of the Year competition!

Here's a few of my favourite contenders. Now voting is over I'll admit I have been quietly rooting for the velvet worm too - they're amazing animals, almost as great as giant springtails!

Whatever happens, thanks so much everyone for your support and patience with my endless vote soliciting on here.

Good luck tomorrow #TeamGiantSpringtail! Fingers crossed!

A photograph of a giant springtail on a decaying log. The springtail has soft blue skin, and is covered in soft, pointy yellow spines.
A photograph of a velvet worm on a decaying log. The velvet worm has many legs, soft blue skin, and is covered in beautiful orange dots scattered randomly over its body.
A photograph of a pair of leaf-veined slugs on a decaying log. One is orange and the other is green, and both have a leaf vein-like branching depression running down the midline of their bodies, giving them a leaf-like appearance.
A photograph of a manuka chafer beetle walking on a bright yellow sheet. The beetle is beautifully iridescent green with orange-brown legs.
#Entomology#BugoftheYear2025#SoilBiodiversity
Frank Ashwood
Public

Colouring contest results!!

There were so many amazing entries, but these two were so good I couldn't decide between them and split the result into two categories 😅

Congratulations to Kora and Heidi for these epic giant springtails, I'll be in touch to arrange your prizes!

There's only two days left to vote for the giant springtail to win bug of the year. Vote now: bugoftheyear.ento.org.nz/vote-

A swirling blue and yellow/brown marble-print style drawing of a giant springtail.
A drawing of a giant springtail, where all of the spines have been converted into multi-coloured tiny springtails of many different kinds.
#TeamGiantSpringtail#BugoftheYear2025#Collembola
Frank Ashwood
Public

We're halfway through the Bug of the Year '25 contest, and the Giant Springtail is still in the lead! BUT there's still four weeks of voting left, so get on it!

Vote here if you haven't already, and please share with your friends and family: bugoftheyear.ento.org.nz/vote-

Let's get these majestic little giants the public attention they deserve, and the conservation protection they need!

A photograph of a giant springtail walking on a mass-covered log. The springtail has soft blue skin and is covered in many soft yellow spines.
#TeamGiantSpringtail#Invertebrate#Entomology
Frank Ashwood
Public

Did you know that Bug of the Year and the New Zealand Poetry Society have introduced a #BugoftheYear Poetry Competition?

Anyone can enter a poem about the competition's nominees! To give you motivation, here's my poem about Giant Springtails, entitled 'A Small Kind of Giant'!

Deadline for submissions is 31st Jan - More info on how you can get involved and submit your poems here: bugoftheyear.ento.org.nz/poetr

Good luck!

#BugoftheYearPoetry2025#nzpoetrysociety#NaturePoetry
Frank Ashwood
Public

I have it on good authority that the Giant Springtail is the current frontrunner in #BugoftheYear, so a huge thanks to everyone who has voted for it so far!

BUT it's still early days, and there's a month of voting left - so let's keep the momentum up! Vote here, if you haven't already: bugoftheyear.ento.org.nz/vote-

Thanks to Amy Vaughan for being chief meme creator for #TeamGiantSpringtail. Stand by for lots more top quality content.

An edited image of Gollum from Lord of the Rings holding up a giant springtail, with text below reading 'My precious'.
#BotY#bugoftheyear2025#Invertebrate
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