Bugs Aren't the Problem - We Are

‍Bugs get a bad rap. Sure, they’re small, sometimes unsettling, and often unwelcome in our homes. But they’re also doing some of the most important jobs in our ecosystems – jobs we rarely think about, let alone appreciate.

This week, I’m joined by Dr Leilani Walker – entomologist, arachnid expert, and all-around invertebrate champion. She’s a Senior Lecturer at Auckland University of Technology and the Curator of Entomology at Auckland War Memorial Museum, and she’s here to challenge how we think about insects. From their crucial roles in maintaining ecosystems to the very real consequences of their decline, we dig into why bugs matter, what happens if we keep wiping them out, and which ones we should actually be worried about.

If you’re someone who reaches for the fly spray at the first sign of movement, this episode might just change your mind.

Find us online:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nowthatswhaticallgreen/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/now-that-s-what-i-call-podcasts
‍
Follow me on social media:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/briannemwest/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@briannemwest
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/briannemwest/

‍Wanna know more about Incrediballs?
‍‍www.incrediballs.com‍
‍https://www.instagram.com/incrediballsdrinks/
‍‍https://www.tiktok.com/@incrediballsdrinks

Transcript

Kia ora, kaitiaki, and welcome to Now That's What I Call Green. I'm your host, Brianne West, an environmentalist and entrepreneur trying to get you as excited about our planet as I am. I'm all about taking a scientific approach to making the world a better place—without the judgement—and making it fun. And of course, we’ll be chatting about some of the most amazing creatures we share our planet with. So if you’re looking to navigate everything green, or not so green, you’ve come to the right place.

Kia ora, kaitiaki, and welcome back to Now That’s What I Call Green. Today, I’m really excited to have Dr Leilani Walker on the show. She’s a lecturer, a researcher, and an expert in the weirdly fascinating world of animal behaviour, entomology—not to be confused with the language one—and biodiversity.

Dr Walker has dedicated her career to understanding the behaviour of spiders and insects, uncovering their really important and totally overlooked roles in our ecosystems, and exploring how we connect with them. So today, we’re going to chat through some of the myths you may have heard, we’ll learn more about animal behaviour, and hopefully, we’ll change your perspective.

So welcome, Dr Leilani Walker. Thank you so much for being on the show. The first question’s always the hardest because it’s the biggest. Tell us about you—what inspired you to get into this field? What have you studied?

Leilani Walker: Yeah, that is a really big question to start with. Thanks for having me, Brianne. Why have I gotten into what I do? Well, it may be a surprise that when I was little, I wanted absolutely nothing to do with insects and spiders. I wanted to be a marine biologist. I wanted to be out on the ocean studying fish, whales, dolphins, stingrays, all of that… but then it turns out that I get incredibly seasick.

Brianne: Oh no!

Leilani: Genuinely, I get very badly seasick. I wear glasses, and I get motion sick if I walk around without them for too long. It’s not just that I get a bit queasy on a rough sea—it’s genuinely trampolines, swings...

Brianne: Oh, that must suck. You poor thing.

Leilani: And to be honest, there are plenty of marine biologists who get seasick, but for whatever reason, I just couldn’t do it. So when I was at university, I still really wanted to study biology, and I was sort of looking around for what else I might be interested in. And because it fit into my timetable, I took a paper on entomology.

Entomology, technically, is the study of insects—things with six legs, like ants, beetles, that sort of thing. But most entomologists know a bit about the bug world in general, so spiders, worms, and various other creatures that aren’t technically insects. And I just think they’re such weird little guys, basically. My love for them is sort of an aesthetic one—I just love how they live in the same world as us, but experience it in such a different way because they’re so small.

A rainy, windy day is a challenge for an insect. A puddle is a challenge for an insect. Getting over a hedge is a challenge for an insect. And I was obsessed with the book The Minpins and The Borrowers when I was little—I used to try to imagine what it would be like to live life at a very small size. How would you interact and move through the world? And if that’s something you find interesting, then the insect world—and more broadly, the terrestrial invertebrate world—is just full of these bizarre little creatures and the bizarre little ways they’ve learned to navigate a world that probably feels much too big.

Brianne: You have managed to describe that in a way that actually does sound really interesting. I can see why it would catch your attention.

Leilani: Yeah, okay, that’s good.

Of course, the reason why one’s able to continue working with them is because they’re also tremendously important for all these processes—pollination, breaking down material, decomposition—not to mention that they’re important prey animals, predators, disease vectors, pests, all these sorts of things. I sometimes think of them as the backroom staff of a party—the cleaners, the cooks. You don’t necessarily see them, but if they’re gone, that’s a disaster.

That’s why they’re tremendously important. But if we’re talking about what gets me up in the morning and excited to go look at some bugs under a microscope or go out into the bush overnight—it’s because I think they’re weird little guys.

Brianne: I feel like these are actually quite straightforward questions, but they’re complex too. One of the reasons is because you’ve recently taken up a role as Curator of Entomology at the Auckland Museum while still lecturing. So, for example, lecturing involves more education, more pure research—going out and studying things—whereas being a curator is about the care and management of the natural history collection. That’s all the pinned specimens, all the specimens in vials stored at the back of the museum, right?

Leilani: Yeah, exactly. And I realise that not everyone actually knows this, but when you go to a museum like Auckland Museum, only about 4% of the museum’s total collection of objects or specimens are on display at any given time. The vast majority of it is stored behind the scenes, and that’s especially true for entomology. We have tens of thousands of specimens that are carefully arranged, looked after, and prepared appropriately.

And I’m kind of between these two roles—being out in the field, working with students, and then being back at the museum, looking at these trays and trays of, in some cases, really old insects. Actually, we have some mosquitoes from the early 1900s, from a time when Auckland looked very different.

And I guess that’s probably one of the themes that underpins both aspects of my work—how insects and spiders, and their communities, have changed as a consequence of human behaviour and human interactions with the environment. That’s something you can study through museum collections. For example, we have native kahukura, or red admiral butterflies, in the collection from places like Glendowie—areas where you just don’t see them anymore. There’s a really clear trajectory in the change of our natural environment that mirrors the changes in human activity. And that’s something we teach at AUT in my biodiversity and ecology classes.

Brianne: So how do you get a secret tour into the back rooms of the museum?

Leilani: You just ask, to be honest. You probably have to book in and go through the proper channels—they won’t just hand you the keys. But these collections are held for the public good. We put the data about the specimens online so researchers and the public can access them. We also have artists who come in to work on things, photograph things, and we do school and educational tours. So, while we don’t have enough staff for everyone to come through all the time, if you ask, it’s definitely possible.

Brianne: So it’s not like a secret nighttime tour?

Leilani: Oh, no, no. Sometimes, for specific exhibitions, they might run something special. But generally, it just depends on whether there’s staff available to show you around. I do worry a little that if hundreds of people suddenly wanted to come through every week, that might not be ideal. But like I said, these collections don’t belong to us as individuals—they’re held for the public good.

Brianne: That makes sense. I’ve got one of those weird imaginations, so I was picturing something like Night at the Museum. But that’s really interesting to know, actually.

Brianne: I actually did an entomology paper at uni, and it was weirdly fascinating. I didn’t progress much with it because it involved catching things in the wild and then pinning them. And, to be honest, I just felt bad. Which sounds really stupid, but I didn’t see how I was contributing to any knowledge by doing it.

Leilani: Yeah, I know what you mean. There’s definitely a fine line that we try to walk with students. Insects are an interesting case because, under the New Zealand Wildlife Act, they don’t actually count as animals.

Brianne: That’s really bizarre.

Leilani: Yeah, it’s very strange. I’m pretty sure lobsters, mud crabs, and some crustaceans do, but according to the Wildlife Act, most insects do not. There are a very small number of insects and spiders that are protected species, but otherwise, they’re not legally considered animals. That means you can do pretty much whatever you want with them.

It’s an example of how laws don’t always align with personal ethics. Just because the law doesn’t classify insects as animals doesn’t mean they don’t feel pain or stress. But it’s left up to individuals to decide how they want to treat them.

Brianne: Gotcha. So, let’s talk about the insect apocalypse. We all know the media takes one thing, adds another, and somehow ends up with 411. Why are spiders, insects, and all those creatures we don’t really think about so essential for ecosystems?

Leilani: Big question. I think we all know that spiders, ants, and various insects form communities that are deeply interconnected with other parts of the ecosystem—soil, trees, birds. But in and around all of that, there are these other species playing their roles too.

Pollinators, for instance, are probably the most visible and tangible example of how insects contribute to ecosystems. But then there’s decomposition—all those nutrients being broken down and cycled through the soil when trees fall or organisms die. It’s usually invertebrates—millipedes, beetles, maggots—that are responsible for turning all of that material over and keeping the ecosystem functioning.

And then, of course, you have predators. Insects and other invertebrates serve as prey for birds, and in some cases, even humans. What’s hard to wrap your head around is the sheer scale of these processes. In terms of biomass—the sheer quantity of living matter—there are so many insects running around the Earth that their contributions are happening at an enormous scale.

These communities are dynamic. They shift and adapt, sometimes favouring species that are more tolerant of changes like drought. But the worry is that at some point, these systems will reach a tipping point where those natural adaptations won’t be enough to compensate for the loss of biodiversity. And that’s when decomposition, pollination, and nutrient flows could start breaking down.

Brianne: So when you read things like "the insect apocalypse" and headlines saying we’re nearing a tipping point, do you think it’s an overstatement? Or is it something we should actually be concerned about?

Leilani: It’s complicated. When that term came out, and the research that followed, the consensus was: we’re actually not sure. We don’t have the data to predict when or how it’s going to happen.

We do know that biodiversity and insect biomass have declined in certain areas. But can we say definitively what that looks like everywhere? No. And part of the reason for that is that people don’t tend to set up long-term studies on insects—they’re actually quite difficult to study in that way.

That said, we do know that whatever is affecting other wildlife—plants, birds, marine life—is also affecting invertebrates. The same big threats apply: climate change, habitat destruction, and in Aotearoa, introduced pests. These are the forces that shape biodiversity loss across all species, including invertebrates.

So should people be concerned? Yes. But should we be thinking about conservation holistically rather than just focusing on specific "charismatic" species? Also yes. It’s not just about saving the kākāpō or the kiwi—it’s about looking at ecosystems as a whole.

Brianne: So it's not just that insects are the "loose brick" that will bring down the whole house—it's that the whole house is under threat at once?

Leilani: Yeah, exactly.

Brianne: I don’t know if that makes me feel slightly better or slightly worse…

Leilani: I guess the nice thing is that ideally, everyone is worried about a different brick.

Brianne: Yeah, that’s true. And that’s the other thing to remember—how many people around the world are working on this problem.

Leilani: Exactly. And for people who suffer from eco-anxiety—which is really just anyone paying attention—it’s always worth remembering that.

Brianne: What’s the biggest misconception you find people have about invertebrates?

Leilani: The one that comes to mind, and this might be because I have a toddler, is about spiders—this idea that they’re out to get you. That they chase you.

Brianne: I think outside of wasps, I’m pretty sure that’s not the case…

Leilani: Yeah! I always say, unless you regularly deal with big mammals, to a spider, you’re basically a mountain. Most bites happen when they feel trapped—like if you accidentally press one against your skin with clothing. That’s their version of a "127 Hours" moment.

Brianne: Fair. And then there’s the classic myth about white-tailed spiders causing necrotising fasciitis…

Leilani: Yep—no evidence for that, no mechanism for that. Total nonsense.

Brianne: It’s wild how many bizarre and widely accepted misconceptions there are about invertebrates. I remember an argument with my biology teacher in fifth form—she insisted that bees don’t bite, they only sting. I was like, well, bumblebees do have mouthparts, so they could bite, but that’s not really the point… And of course, there’s the classic myth that daddy longlegs are the most venomous spiders in the world but "just can’t bite you," which is also rubbish.

Leilani: Yep! I was actually part of a research project looking at how misinformation about spiders spreads. It was an international collaboration where we analysed news stories about spiders—tracking how often sensationalist language was used, how often bites were reported, whether an actual spider had been found, and if experts had been consulted.

Not surprisingly, when a story consulted an arachnologist or invertebrate biologist, the information tended to be more accurate and less alarmist. But unfortunately, a lot of the widely shared stories were pure fear-mongering.

One of my favourites was a story about someone who claimed they had been bitten by something, assumed it was a spider, and then insisted they could feel spider eggs inside their foot. That they could feel them hatching.

Brianne: Oh, gross.

Leilani: Yeah. Super compelling story, except… at no point was there any actual evidence.

Brianne: Also… what would a spider want with the inside of your foot?

Leilani: Exactly! It’s not like they could breathe in there, and it’s definitely not what they want to eat. I think a spider would be just as upset to wake up inside your foot as you would be to find it there.

Brianne: I love that as a way of reframing it—imagine it from the spider’s perspective. Try putting yourself in a tiny creature’s position.

Brianne: So, spiders and sharks basically have the same PR team. Are all spiders technically venomous?

Leilani: Almost all. Yes. Most spiders are predators, and they use venom to immobilise and kill their prey—whether by jumping on them or trapping them in webs.

There is one family—Uloboridae, if anyone’s interested—that doesn’t use venom. Instead, they use their webs to crush their prey. As if that’s a nicer way to go…

Brianne: So they’re the constrictors of the spider world?

Leilani: Yeah, basically! But by and large, yes—all spiders are venomous. But very few are big enough to bite us, and even fewer have bites that are medically significant.

Brianne: And that’s really just a fluke of nature, right? We’re not their prey.

Leilani: Exactly. They really don’t care about us.

Brianne: You mentioned before that one of Aotearoa’s biggest issues is pest species. I haven’t really thought about this in terms of invertebrates—what are the major pest species here? Wasps, I assume, are one?

Leilani: Yes, wasps are a huge problem because they’re predators. They form incredibly dense nests and can suppress native invertebrate populations really effectively.

Then you’ve got ants, and also some of the mammalian predators—rats, mice, and even hedgehogs.

Brianne: Hedgehogs?!

Leilani: Yes! They’re adorable, but they’re also little nightmares for native insects.

Brianne: I actually made a "dino dome" lizard sanctuary in my backyard and had to hedgehog-proof it. They’re so cute, but absolute menaces.

Brianne: Okay, so let’s flip this—what do we have in Aotearoa that’s especially cool or unique in the invertebrate world?

Leilani: Oh, where to start?! There’s an alpine fly in the Southern Alps with huge, dark, dinner plate-like wings. They use them as solar panels to keep warm in the cold.

Brianne: That is so clever.

Leilani: Yeah! Another one I love is the giraffe weevil. The males have these ridiculously long necks and use them to joust for mates. And while the big males are fighting it out, these tiny "sneaker males" slip in underneath them and mate with the females right under the big guys' noses.

Brianne: That is… oof. How gutted would you be?

Leilani: Right? And it’s not a unique strategy—it happens in other species too. Some cuttlefish even disguise themselves as females to sneak past dominant males.

Brianne: I went diving with cuttlefish in South Australia during their big mating display—absolutely incredible. The guide was telling us about that exact behaviour. Amazing how common it is across species.

Brianne: Okay, one more question before I get to the point of why I’m asking all of this. If spiders and insects aren’t out to get us, if they’re fighting for survival, if they have all these fascinating behaviours, how do we get people to stop seeing them as "ick" and start understanding how vital they are? Or do you not worry about that?

Leilani: You have to do both, otherwise the eco-anxiety will stop you from getting out of bed in the morning.

I think storytelling helps. Being honest about how bizarre they are. I don’t mind saying that they do stupid things, that they’re weird, because that resonates with some people. But I don’t think we need everyone to be a bug nerd. What we need is a handful of people who care a heck of a lot about them, and for everyone else to at least stop killing them out of fear.

*If people stop spraying bug spray all over their house, that’s already a huge improvement. If they swap out their lawn for native plants, even better. Conservation works best when everyone does something, rather than expecting a few people to do everything."

Brianne: Totally. If everyone does 10%, that’s way better than a small number of people doing 100%.

Leilani: Exactly. And if all that happens is people think twice before spraying something with fly spray, that’s a massive improvement. Or even better—if they start digging up their lawns and planting natives or wildflowers. That makes a huge difference.

Brianne: Yes! Lawns are one of my personal pet hates. I bought some land a few years ago, and it was basically just weed mat and exotic trees. It was awful. So I spent three years planting all sorts of native plants, and I dug up about two acres of lawn and replaced it with wildflowers. Now the birds, bees, and insects are everywhere—it’s incredible. And while that’s obviously a big-scale project, people can absolutely do this in their own backyards.

Leilani: Yep, exactly. We had the same thing—our backyard was full of weed mat too. But the great thing is, when people around you also make these changes, you benefit from it as well. For example, whenever I visit my parents now, I see dragonflies and damselflies. And we’re not even near fresh water, which means someone nearby must have restored a stream or done some planting. Their work has created a ripple effect that we’re now benefiting from.

Brianne: That’s such a great point. Small actions add up, especially for insects, because they don’t need as much space as, say, a kererū.

Leilani: Yep. One of the nice things about being interested in bugs is that you see the results of your efforts pretty quickly. Insects are just so good at finding new habitats when they appear.

Brianne: So, what’s next for you? I know you’ve recently had a baby—do you have plans for future research, or an overarching goal you want to achieve?

Leilani: At the moment, it feels like waking up after a really bad sleep and trying to get my brain going again. But one of the things I’m keen to look into is a spider species I studied during my PhD—sheet-web spiders. They’re reasonably large by New Zealand standards, and they build these big, horizontal, non-sticky trampoline-like webs in the North Island.

Brianne: Oh, Jesus. They’re huge.

Leilani: Yeah, they’re fairly big, but because they stay under their webs at night, most people never see them. If you go out at night with a torch, though, you’ll see them hanging upside down under their webs, waiting for prey to fall in.

Whenever people are scared of them, I like to tell them how, if they get frightened, they actually play dead. They’re classic Kiwi animals in that way—when they feel threatened, they just freeze. If they get really scared, they’ll even drop out of their web, curl into a ball, and just lie there in the grass until they think the danger has passed.

Brianne: Oh, now I feel terrible.

Leilani: Nah, don’t worry. They get over it.

Brianne: So what are you specifically interested in studying about them?

Leilani: Their webs. These spiders build massive webs that can last for years, but no one really knows how they construct them. And because it only happens at night, no one has really sat down to watch them do it. So I guess that’s what I’m going to have to do—sit out in the dark for hours on end and see what happens.

Brianne: So, a lot of patience required then?

Leilani: Yep. A lot of podcasts to listen to.

Brianne: Final question! If you were suddenly granted Supreme Overlord status and had the power to change or implement one thing to make the world a better place, what would it be?

Leilani: I would make everyone in Aotearoa vote in New Zealand’s Bug of the Year. It closes on Valentine’s Day.

Brianne: There’s a Bug of the Year?!

Leilani: Yep! Just like Bird of the Year, but for invertebrates. So that’s what I’d make people do—vote in the 2025 Bug of the Year.

Brianne: How did I not know about this? I’m going to Google it immediately. I’ll put links in the show notes for anyone listening so they can vote too.

Leilani: That would be amazing. It’s such a great way to raise awareness about species we might not even realise exist—just like Bird of the Year. Although, it does annoy me that kea don’t win more often.

Brianne: Right? Kea are clearly the superior bird. But I love the idea of Bug of the Year. That’s brilliant.

Brianne: Huge thank you to Dr Leilani Walker for sharing your amazing insights and for showing us why these creatures don’t deserve the fear or revulsion they often get. They are genuinely fascinating.

I encourage everyone to go outside, lie on your lawn—actually, no, dig up your lawn first—then go out into your garden and just observe what’s going on. It’s incredible how much life is around us when we actually take the time to look.

If you want to learn more about Dr Walker’s work, we’ll pop some links in the show notes—along with the voting link for Bug of the Year!

Thank you for tuning in, and don’t forget to keep an eye out for the amazing nature just outside your door. See you next week. Mā te wā.

Outro: And there you go! I hope you learned something new and realised that being green isn’t about having a pantry full of matching glass jars or living in a commune. If that’s your jam, fabulous. But at its heart, sustainability is just about using what you need.

If you enjoyed this episode, don’t keep it to yourself—drop me a rating and hit that subscribe button. Kia ora, and I’ll see you next week!