Every spring the ABC asks a panel of entomologists to put six insects forward and the country to choose one, and the 2026 finalists landed on Friday. In the running: the gold Christmas beetle (Anoplognathus aureus), once a fixture of summer nights; the critically endangered Mallee bronze azure butterfly (Ogyris subterrestris); the orchard swallowtail (Papilio aegeus), one of the country's largest butterflies; the Otway glow worm (Arachnocampa otwayensis), not a worm at all but the young of a fungus gnat, found only in south west Victoria; the stalk eyed signal fly (Achias australis), whose eyes sit out on stalks to impress females and face down rivals; and the tortoise shelled ladybird (Harmonia testudinaria), about six millimetres long, yellow to orange with a black net pattern, a tireless eater of aphids from north Queensland down the east coast. Author and photographer Peter Rowland, who nominated it, calls these ladybirds "the mighty unsung heroes of our backyards and ecosystems". Voting runs to the end of October and the winner is announced on 9 November, during Australian Pollinator Week.

Dozens of silk threads strung with droplets hanging in front of green ferns
The sticky snares of the Otway glow worm, Arachnocampa otwayensis, hung from a fern bank at Barwon Downs in the Otways. Photo: Peter Crowcroft, iNaturalist, CC BY 4.0.

Last year's winner was the graphic flutterer (Rhyothemis graphiptera), a dragonfly with amber and brown patterned wings that flutters more like a butterfly than it darts, nominated by Dr Ken Walker of Museums Victoria; the first winner, in 2024, was the blue banded bee. Walker's case for the whole competition is simple. A 2018 Academy of Science review estimated only thirty percent of Australia's insects have names, and "without them we are all stuffed". So much of an insect's life passes unseen, he says, as egg, larva and pupa. On the panel this year are Keith Bayless of CSIRO, Mark Schutze, president of the Australian Entomological Society, Dr Kate Umbers of Invertebrates Australia, AB Bishop of Gardening Australia magazine, Jessie Sinclair of Zoos Victoria and Peter Rowland. Whichever insect takes the title, the other five get a month of being looked at closely, which is most of the point.

A dragonfly with amber and brown patterned wings perched on a twig
The reigning champion: a graphic flutterer, Rhyothemis graphiptera, at Mareeba, Queensland. Photo: Bernard Dupont, CC BY-SA 2.0.

Our short take: the full story is by Gavin McGrath for ABC News, 2 October 2026; species names checked against the ABC piece and iNaturalist Australia. Inside: [graphic flutterer, Rhyothemis graphiptera, by Bernard Dupont, Mareeba, Queensland, CC BY SA 2.0].