New & Big Ideas (Guest Contributors)

October 7th 2022

Today the Yarra spilled over the banks to cover the bike tracks and walking paths, not too much, but enough you could not walk through.
The rain kept falling from the previous week, and it was no surprise the water would rise. But I was a tiny bit surprised to see a good flood, and my prediction the week before, as I stood in the drizzling rain to watch the river, seemed to be confirmed.

In the Jungle of Sulawesi, an island in the Indonesian archipelago, a gruesome discovery was made that has forever changed our point of view. 2019, two scientists from Sydney, Australia, were on a getaway, happy snapping the fauna and flora of the jungles in Sulawesi, when they happened upon a butterfly frenzy like none they had seen before.

Caterpillars don’t make cocoons, nor do they sprout wings, grow a proboscis and curly head-wear from a body that shrunk in size on a two-week hiatus from eating so much food.
It is far more miraculous, exciting and mind-boggling – how a caterpillar becomes something entirely other than itself.

Nudibranchs are not only brilliantly adorned harlequin shapeshifters and chemical manufacturing killing machines – These oceanic wonderments have other exciting abilities no one thought possible. Learn why these gorgeous, colourful slugs are considered Pokémons of the sea.

Sharing the story of this particular species, because of their profound uniqueness – might help change the perception of those not too keen on bugs. Hopefully, you will be inspired, like me, to rethink your relationship with insects and spiders and put down the can of RAID.

They have been dubbed “genius” by Sir David Attenborough in his narration of Porche.
Scientists believe that Jumping Spiders are brilliant, likely because of their wildly sophisticated eyesight.

Do you ever have the feeling when dancing in a crowd with all your friend of being so happy that you could burst out of your skin, transform and grow wings?
You could be a Locust.