From tongue-biters to space travellers: our frontrunners for invertebrate of the year

Invertebrates make up the vast majority of life on Earth but they are often overlooked or taken for granted. But not so by Guardian and, indeed, Down to Earth readers, who have offered several thousand brilliant nominations for our invertebrate of the year competition.

The contest is in full swing, with each of the 10 shortlisted species announced over this week and next. Next Thursday, you will get your chance to vote for your favourite.

In 2024, the first time we held this competition, we offered a UK-based shortlist. This year the list is global and fantastically eclectic – a dazzling array of flies, beetles, worms, arachnids, crustaceans and cephalopods. There are some fascinating trends behind the nominations as well.

This is all a bit of fun but I hope it encourages more of us to consider the importance of small things, and the inherent wonder to be found in all forms of life on Earth.

More about the nominations, after this week’s climate headlines.

I can’t help but resort to competition cliches with our invertebrate of the year shortlist. Every one of these animals is a winner.

So far, we’ve revealed two creatures that may cause some to recoil. The tongue-biting louse (Cymothoa exigua) finds a fish, burrows through the gills, devours part of the fish’s tongue and then clings to the stump, eating what the fish eats and sharing enough so the fish stays alive.

This crustacean has inspired a horror movie (The Bay, which the Guardian gave five stars), and there’s a sinister side to the dark-edged bee-fly (Bombylius major) as well. This sleek insect hums like a bee, pollinates flowers like a bee and is cute and fluffy like a bee. But it’s a fly, and it scatters its eggs near a solitary bee’s nest so the larvae can feed off the bees’ offspring.

We often anthropomorphise such creatures or ascribe human failings – as I’ve just done using “sinister” – to innocent animals. Many scientists know better, of course, and marvel at the niches that these animals have found. A dark-edged bee-fly in a European or North American garden is a sign of a healthy invertebrate ecosystem with enough wild bees to provide opportunities for these ingenious flies. Such parasites are no different to predators and yet we often view the latter more sympathetically.

The next on the shortlist reveals an interesting trend. There was a lot of love for invertebrates that are small and yet remarkably resilient. Perhaps we are drawn to such hopeful stories in troubling geopolitical and planetary times, when we starkly feel our own powerlessness.

There were several nominations for the scaly-footed snail (Chrysomallon squamiferum), which lives in volcanic vents, making its shell out of iron and protecting its soft foot with iron plates, but that didn’t quite make the final 10.

Step forward the tardigrades, a phylum of eight-segmented micro-animals who can endure boiling heat and freezing cold, and have survived being shot out of a gun and let loose in outer space. Under a microscope, they look as cute as piglets or chubby bears. Our shortlisted tardigrade, Milnesium tardigradum, has survived in space.

I predict a buoyant tardigrade vote and a top-three finish for our fourth shortlisted invertebrate, the flamboyant cuttlefish (Ascarosepion pfefferi). There was a very strong marine showing this year, and a lot of appreciation for cephalopods, which have enjoyed new appreciation since the success of the 2020 documentary My Octopus Teacher.

There are still six incredible shortlisted invertebrates to come, and a gentle giant of a worm is sure to win over many hearts. For me, learning about these remarkable invertebrates is a lesson in just how weird our human lives are. There is no “normal” way of existing on Earth.

I’ve read every nomination and it has been a joyful process to discover the amazing diversity not just of life on Earth but of the reasons people love this or that invertebrate – deeply personal, poetic or just funny. Thank you readers!

This competition expresses some of the joy we get from being neighbours with other species. Invertebrates touch our lives in deep or simple ways. As one reader wrote of cicadas: “Happy noise makers on hot sunny days!”

Here’s to all 1.3 million-plus invertebrates on our special planet, and here’s to us living alongside them in a gentler, more appreciative way.

Read more:

The good news

The bad news

Profiling an inspiring individual, suggested by Down to Earth readers

North Carolina vet Elizabeth Hilborn has a rare calling: she specialises in caring for bees. In fact, as she explains to Phoebe Weston in this Guardian article, she may be the only one in the US.

“In 2017, because of concerns about antibiotic resistance in humans, the US government changed the rules, which meant beekeepers could no longer buy the drugs over the counter. So they needed a veterinarian to prescribe them, and that’s why I decided to create a veterinary practice for bees,” she says.

“I don’t know anyone else who is just a bee vet. I’ve been growing fruit my whole life, and I wanted to support bees and the people that keep them. I work evenings, weekends and holidays around my day job. I love pollinators; it is such a pleasure and privilege to work with them, so it doesn’t seem like work.”

If you’d like to nominate a climate hero, email [email protected]

Demystifying a climate concept you’ve heard in the headlines

The process by which seawater absorbs excess carbon dioxide from the environment, bringing down its pH levels. This in turn causes a drop in the mineral content – relied on by the likes of coral and oysters – meaning that ocean acidification has been described as “osteoporosis of the sea”.

For more Guardian coverage of acidification, click here

One image that sums up the week in environmental news

Credit: Sia Duff for the Guardian

Overbury Drive, a street in the suburbs of Adelaide, Australia, looks like any other cul-de-sac in the city … but for the enormous, 200-year-old red gum tree sat squarely in the middle of the road.

“At sunset, its silhouette seems to radiate gold light as rainbow lorikeets screech and swoop around its branches,” Walter Marsh writes for Guardian Australia. “Their nests are hard to spot from the road – high up above the parked cars, wheelie bins and power lines, the tree’s vast canopy could be its own little world.”

It’s a beautiful sight, but it’s under threat. As Marsh explains in his article, residents of Overbury Drive banded together to save the tree after spotting worrying signs of decay. Though their efforts staved off disaster for now, the tree’s precarious state is a stark reminder of the many ways the climate crisis touches our lives.

For more of the week’s best environmental pictures, catch up on The Week in Wildlife here