What’s That? Australian Insects
What’s That? Australian Insects
Myke Mollard
Woodslane Press, 2025
40pp., hbk., RRP $A24.99
9781922800954
With an estimated 5.5 to 7 million insect species on Earth, though only about 1 million have been scientifically named and described, it is no wonder our young learners encounter words like head, thorax, abdomen, antennae and so on at an early age as they learn about these creatures that make up the largest group of animals on Earth, able to survive the most testing conditions (or escape them) even Antarctica.
Australia is estimated to have 200 000 distinct species and this new book in the What’s That? series, dedicated to all those kids who ask that question, focuses on some of the more common including ants, wasps and bees, butterflies and moths, beetles and weevils and several other orders of this class. Like its predecessors, each section begins with a question and then through Mollard’s trademark detailed illustrations, maps and small chunks of information, the reader is introduced to some of the species they might see. Who knew there were such things as dinosaur ants, that we have native teddy bear bees , and that there is a stick insect that can grow to 25cm long?
But just as it’s interesting to discover different members of this widespread species, it also holds an important place in the education of our young because there is a saying that “you can’t protect what you don’t know” enshrined in a speech at a 2024 UN event “Reading for a Healthy Planet when zoologist Ferdinando Boero said “Emotion is not awareness…It’s fine to excite children with stories about pandas, dolphins, bunnies, and kittens, but we need to move from emotion to awareness, this is the challenge […].” “You can’t protect what you don’t know,” he said.
Given the necessity of insects to sustain healthy ecosystems across the globe, and the interest in helping them survive and thrive through things like establishing bee motels in school gardens, this is an excellent starter for raising awareness and helping our young readers recognise what they are seeing and then investigate how they can protect it. Just an outstanding series overall.