The New Zealand Bug of the Year will be announced soon, and an uri of renowned Māori academic Ranginui Walker is supporting a native spider.
Over the past two months, 21 native bugs—insects, worms, and spiders—have been battling it out for votes, with the winner set to be revealed tomorrow.
Auckland War Memorial Museum’s entomology curator, Dr. Leilani Walker, says she is backing the pūngāwerewere, the trapdoor spider.
She says New Zealand punches above its weight in the bug world, with estimates suggesting that of the 2,000 spider species here, 90 percent are found only in Aotearoa.
“So if you think about in terms of the numbers, that means that we have more native or endemic spiders here in Aotearoa, New Zealand, than they do in North America, if you compare by landmass. So we have a huge number of very, very special, our very own spider species. And so that’s why species like the Trapdoor spider are taonga, whereas the Whitetail spider is actually one of a few Australian species that have made their way over here,” says Walker.
