Living World – Insects

Here are links to Science Learning Hub resources for primary teachers related to insects in the Living World strand of the New Zealand Curriculum.

Investigate insects found in New Zealand to answer questions about life cycles, classification, conservation and biosecurity. Start by watching our webinar All about insects.

All about insects

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Insects offer stimulating content with which teachers can feed student curiosity and grow science knowledge and capabilities.

Rights: The University of Waikato Te Whare Wānanga o Waikato

The Super Insects article has all of Countdown’s Super Insect teacher resources available as free downloadables – including an overview poster, 10 activity cards and a cross-curricular activity bonus.

• Native insects

• Life cycles

• Honey bees

• Butterflies

• Innovative ideas

• Biosecurity and biocontrol

• Monitoring

• More on insects

• Useful links

Native insects

The islands that make up this country are home to a vast number of species found nowhere else in the world. Learn about some of our native insects.

What’s so special about insects? – article

Last of the species?

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This poster gives some examples of just three of the thousands of invertebrates that are listed as threatened or at risk in New Zealand.

Illustrations by Emma Scheltema

Download the poster here.

Rights: New Zealand insect cards project

Insect taxonomy – article

Te aitanga pepeke – article

Aquatic insect life – article

Insects – physical characteristics – article

Label the insect – activity

Label the wētā – interactive

Label the cicada – interactive

The five most diverse insect orders – interactive

New Zealand aquatic insects – interactive

New Zealand's unique ecosystems – introductory article with links to media, articles and activities.

Glow-worms – article

Cave wētā – article

Wētā – article

Wētā

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An example of one of the drawers full of specimens found at Landcare Research. This shows the range of wētā found in New Zealand.

Rights: The University of Waikato Te Whare Wānanga o Waikato

Building homes for tree wētā – activity

Redesigning wētā houses – article

Vegetable caterpillar – article

Fred the thread – article

Science and literacy – using Fred the Thread – activity

Discovering new species – collection of resources based on Fred the Thread

Our elusive native butterflies – article

Middle Earth wasps – article

Insect antennae – article

Honeydew ecosystem (scale insects) – article

Insects and forest ecosystems – article

Honeydew: The Food of the Ngahere – video

Constructing food webs (scale insects) – activity

Insect mihi – activity

Moth collecting – activity

Identifying bugs – activity

Rearing insects – activity

Make a wanted poster – activity

City of bugs – Connected article

Life cycles

Insect life cycles have many similarities and differences, making them an ideal way to learn about life processes.

New Zealand native butterflies – article

Monarch butterflies – article

White butterfly life cycle – activity

Monarch butterfly life cycle – interactive

Rearing moths to observe life cycles – activity

Insect metamorphosis – image Glow-worm life cycle – image

Vegetable caterpillar fungi – video

Parasitoid wasp life cycle – article

Bees

Honey bee are the most important pollinators of many cultivated food crops and other flowering plants. See our bees topic for more.

Pollination – introductory article with links to media, articles and activities

Honey bee on flower

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This honey bee has pushed its head into a flower to search for nectar. Pollen from the stamens will rub off on its body and get carried to another flower.

Rights: Neville Gardner

Pollination role-plays – activity

Honey to heal – introductory article with links to media, articles and activities

The Buzz of bees – article

Bees – fun facts – article

Bee-friendly insecticides – article

Honey bee heroes – article

Honeybees and Mānuka trees – article

People are doing heaps for kauri, kiwi and kākāpō but nothing for endemic butterfly species, yet insects are crucial to the ecosystem.

Jacqui Knight

Butterflies and moths

Almost all of the butterflies in New Zealand are native and most are endemic. Compared to big, colourful species from other countries, our native butterflies are small and secretive. See our butterflies and moths topic for more.

Investigating butterflies – introductory article with links to media, articles and activities

Rauparaha’s copper

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The Rauparaha’s copper (Lycaena rauparaha) is said to be named after the famous warrior as its more heavily populated habitats are found along the coastal strip from Taranaki to Wellington where Te Rauparaha was most active.

Rights: Jérôme Albre

Butterfly defense mechanisms – article

New Zealand butterfly origins – article

White butterflies – article

Establishing butterfly transects – activity

Tagging monarch butterflies for science – activity

Butterflies (lower primary) – unit plan

Butterflies (upper primary) – unit plan

Helping the butterflies of Aotearoa New Zealand – article

Ahi Pepe MothNet project – introductory article with links to media, articles and activities

New Zealand moths – article

Difference between butterflies and moths – article

Making moth identification guides – article

Our collection Kaitiakitanga and moths includes information and ideas about the pepe and pūrerehua of Aotearoa as well how children are learning about how to protect these amazing, secretive creatures.

Innovative ideas

Insects are used by science to inspire and solve a number of problems.

Plant & Food Research and Etec Crop Solutions – Pheromone-based-Insecticide – video

Where we’re controlling insects without the side effects that other control tactics seem to have is a very satisfying thing personally because it’s helping to green New Zealand even further.

Dr Max Suckling

Dung beetle mania – article

Dung beetles released on farms – article

and

Insects are both an issue and a solution when it comes to protecting New Zealand's natural and primary production environments. For more, browse the range of resources under the biosecurity and biocontrol topics.

Introduced pests:

• White butterflies – article

• German and common wasps – article

• Whangarei fruit fly find a worry – article

• Eradicating southern saltmarsh mosquitoes – article

• Fighting a little bee mite – article

• Improving Aotearoa New Zealand’s biosecurity detection – article (with a focus on the fall armyworm pest)

Biocontrol success stories:

• Bioforce – breeding bugs for biocontrol – article

• Irish wasp to the rescue – article

• Weevils eat pesky buddleia weeds – article

Monitoring

Find out what insects are in your local environment with these activities:

• Pollinator counts – insects and flowers

• Yellow pan traps – monitoring flying insects

• Pitfall traps – monitoring ground-dwelling insects

• Heath moth traps for monitoring moths

• Establishing butterfly transects

• Tagging monarch butterflies for science

Citizen science projects

Participate in the New Zealand Mosquito Census and help scientists at Te Papa learn more about the various mosquitos in Aotearoa.

Global Earth Challenge is an international citizen science project that has a section on monitoring insect population changes.

More on insects

Hi tech drones copy nature’s design – article

New Zealand’s fish-eating spider – article

A spider preying on a fish

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Dolomedes sp. preying on a mountain galaxias (Galaxias olidus) on the bank of North Branch Creek near Goomburra, Queensland, Australia.

Rights: © Nyffeler M, Pusey BJ (2014) Fish Predation by Semi-Aquatic Spiders: A Global Pattern. PLoS ONE 9(6): e99459. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0099459 Photo by Peter Liley. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Poison comes in small packages – article

Tree lobsters’ convergent evolution – article

Deformed bee wing virus – image

Gum leaf skeletoniser – image

Wasp versus ant – image