Bugs
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Voting is now open for the New Zealand Bug of the Year competition, which is an activity of the Entomological Society of New Zealand. As far as I can tell, this is the world's only BotY event, and you don't need to be in or from New Zealand to vote.
The linguistic relevance, aside from the WotY resonance, is their choice of the word "bug" rather than "insect" in the event's name. The first of their FAQs explains it this way:
Most entomologists will correct you if you try to substitute the term “bug” when describing an insect or spider. In fact, a “bug” is technically only one type of insect (insects in the Order Hemiptera have the common name of “true bugs”. They include plant bugs, stink bugs, aphids, cicadas… a few of these are nominated for 2023 NZ Bug of the Year!).
So why did we call this “Bug” of the Year instead of “Insect” of the Year? We had two reasons. (1) We wanted to use an inclusive term so that spiders, worms, and other invertebrates could be nominated for this honorable distinction. (2) “Bug of the Year” just rolls off the tongue in a way that “Insect of the Year” or “Invertebrate of the Year” never could. We assure you – those of us on the 2023 Bug Of The Year committee spent hours discussing and arguing about this, but at the end of the day, “Insect of The Year” would have satisfied the Entomologists and excluded the Arachnologists, while “Bug of the Year” just *bugs* (pun intended) the Entomologists, satisfies the Arachnologists, and the non-invertebrate specialists just learned that “bug” is a technical term that causes debate among scientists.
And the list of 2025 BotY nominees, appropriately, includes plenty of spiders, flies, worms, molluscs, and other critters not in the order Hemiptera. The nominations for the 2026 competition are also open — and I wonder whether nominations of bacteria would be allowed, since they're colloquially called "bugs"? The organizers seem to thrive on controversy, so probably the answer is "yes".
For appropriate musical background, here's Jesse Welles' song "Bugs":
The words, as rendered on the YouTube page (the performance is a bit different in spots):
well have a reason
and know why
don’t do it jus so they’ll die
if yer gonna kill a bug
don’t do it jus because
I like bugs and i’ll tell ya why
they’re alive and so am i
bugs
i like grass hoppers
cus frogs eat em
i like bees cus flowers need em
i like spiders
i like slugs
i like caterpillars
i like bugs
i hate crowds
i love people
i aint down with the plague but im cool with beatles and bugs
whoa bugs r pretty cute
bugs r pretty fun
there’s a couple of bugs i try n stay away frum
mosquitos ticks business flies
bugs in suits
bugs in ties
and i get bit and it makes me itch
ya aint ever gonna hear me complain
cus they never rlly kill me i jus get bit, itch, and keepa goin my way
bzz bzz bzzz bz bz bzzzzz
bz bz bz bz bz bzzz
look out there’s a bird
bz bz bz bz bzzz bzz
alright ya made it
bz bz bz bz bz bz
bz bz bz bz
bzzzz
tenacious dung beetles
pushin their gains
lil water beatles
ridin a wave
butterflies are beautiful
and moths are mysterious
we study fruit flys fer genetics
if ya wanna talk serious
by and large bugs are okay
they’re jus goin along
livin their bug day
uh huh
and i dont know what the mantis is prayin for
but he’s prolly jus thankin the lord
that he dont live in a home
and he dont have a phone
and he dont sit around all angry and bored
he’s jussa bug
let’s hear it for the bugs
bz bz bz bz bz bzzzz
bz bz bz bz bz bzzz
buzz on
bz bz bz bz bz bz bzzzz
For lagniappe, the song's metrics are interesting as well as skillful.
Philip Taylor said,
January 1, 2025 @ 11:58 am
I nominate the wētā, clusters of which caused near-hysteria in the Waikato caves when I visited there in 1987. Photography was strictly forbidden, but when the guide realised that while the vast majority of the visitors were in a serious panic on learning of the presence of these remarkable creatures, I appeared fascinated by them, she kindly allowed me to stay behind and photograph them once the other visitors were out of sight. She even went on to tell me where I could photograph the glow-worms (the main reason for visiting the caves) without paying an entrance fee !
Mark Liberman said,
January 1, 2025 @ 1:05 pm
@Philip Taylor: "I nominate the wētā, clusters of which caused near-hysteria in the Waikato caves when I visited there in 1987."
Sorry, you'll have to place your nomination on the official nominations page.
Also, you'll need to be more precise about which of the 100 species of wētā you're nominating. The Wētāpunga (Deinacrida heteracantha) was a 2023 nominee, the McArthur Giant Wētā (Deinacrida tibiospina) was nominated in 2024, and the Mercury Island Tusked Wētā (Motuweta isolata) is a nominee in the 2025 BotY.
Philip Taylor said,
January 1, 2025 @ 1:20 pm
I would hesitate to offer a Linnaean binomial — the whole taxonomy of the Aotearoan cave wētā is still very much a matter of debate. See, for example, https://europeanjournaloftaxonomy.eu/index.php/ejt/article/view/2761
AntC said,
January 1, 2025 @ 3:01 pm
I guess this is building on the celebrity NZ Bird of the Year 2021, "that nearly broke the internet" after being won by a bat. And then the 2023 Bird of the Century after TV host John Oliver interfered with the pūteketeke.
cameron said,
January 1, 2025 @ 3:37 pm
the famous glowworm caves are called "Waitomo", not "Waikato", though Waitomo is in the Waikato region
David Morris said,
January 1, 2025 @ 4:14 pm
I have just learned from Wikipedia what a wētā is and not to confuse wētā and weta.
Philip Taylor said,
January 1, 2025 @ 4:43 pm
the famous glowworm caves are called "Waitomo" — agreed, Cameron. But as I was visiting the (University of) Waikato at that time, I thought of them as the Waikato caves …
J.W. Brewer said,
January 1, 2025 @ 5:20 pm
Quoth wikipedia: "In some varieties of English, all terrestrial arthropods (including non-insect arachnids and myriapods) also fall under the colloquial understanding of bug." That seems right to me, so trying to sneak worms, of all things, into a broader-than-Hemiptera definition of "bugs" is perverse rather than colloquially loose. Bugs have legs, wings, or both! (The wikipedia discussion of "arthropod" covers both under the phrase "paired jointed appendages.")
The first specific named sort of bug of which I became aware as a child was probably the ladybug, which the internet advises me is non-Hemipteric and in fact a sort of beetle according to the taxonomists. I find myself much more sympathetic to the point that shellfish are strictly speaking not a sort of fish than to the claim that ladybugs are strictly speaking not a sort of bug.
Gregory Kusnick said,
January 1, 2025 @ 5:47 pm
To JW's point, "true bugs" is a particular bugaboo of mine since I have yet to meet a biologist or read a text that can give a coherent account of why the bugginess of the Hemiptera (or, depending on who you ask, the Heteroptera) is somehow truer than that of the arthropods in general.
As far as I can see, "true bugs" is little more than a shibboleth (call them "true bugs" if you want to sound like a Real Biologist) or zombie rule passed down unquestioningly from teacher to student, with no real scientific content behind it.
If I'm wrong about this, I would appreciate being set straight, but so far no one has been able to do so convincingly.
AntC said,
January 1, 2025 @ 6:01 pm
not to confuse wētā and weta.
Indeed. Nor wēta; and certainly not weka.
Y said,
January 1, 2025 @ 6:13 pm
Add to the bug-positive songbook Ivor Cutler's I Believe in Bugs.
Andrew Usher said,
January 1, 2025 @ 8:50 pm
The general rule I hold is that scientists are entitled to take a colloquial term and make it more specific in technical use, if they find this useful, but they have no right to criticise those using the original, colloquial sense. This is normally respected. I do not know whether the use of the word 'bug' for the 'true bugs' is common enough to make it natural and not simply a shibboleth, but if so there's nothing wrong with it.
I also would say worms are definitely not 'bugs', but that may well vary across the world and this was from NZ (and it seems they have an interest in making their goofy competition as inclusive as possible).
k_over_hbarc at yahoo.com
Xtifr said,
January 1, 2025 @ 9:28 pm
Bug in the colloquial sense can even refer to bacteria and viruses ("I missed work because I caught a bug"), so a worm doesn't seem wholly out-of-bounds.
I, personally, would describe the entomologist's version as jargon. Which is fine–jargon can be useful–but as Andrew Usher says, adding a special technical meaning to an existing term does not magically make that the "one true meaning!" See also: "fruit" and "planet". :)
Gregory Kusnick said,
January 1, 2025 @ 11:19 pm
"Planet" seems like a different case to me, because the common usage of "planet" is not some longstanding folk tradition but rather the scientific usage that prevailed at the the dawn of the era of planetary exploration. The list of nine planets learned by 20th-century schoolchildren is entirely an artifact of the scientific understanding at the time. When that understanding changed, so did the technical vocabulary, for coherently explicable reasons, and the list of planets learned by future schoolchildren will reflect that. I would not be surprised if by the middle of this century, the insistence that Pluto is a planet will be regarded as an eccentricity on par with creationism or flat-Earthism.
Philip Taylor said,
January 2, 2025 @ 3:48 am
JWB — "The first specific named sort of bug of which I became aware as a child was probably the ladybug" — which is, of course, known in Britain as the ladybird, and would therefore have been eligible for "the celebrity NZ Bird of the Year 2021" competition !
Richard Hershberger said,
January 2, 2025 @ 5:28 am
If we are going from colloquial usage, then surely our favorite computer programming errors are eligible for Bug of the Year.
Mia Schutz said,
January 2, 2025 @ 8:57 am
This is such a fun and fascinating event! I love how they’ve embraced the broad, everyday use of “bug” while still giving a nod to its technical meaning. It’s such a clever way to include all kinds of critters, not just insects, and it makes the competition more accessible and engaging for everyone—not just entomologists.
Their reasoning totally makes sense: “Bug of the Year” is way catchier than “Insect of the Year” or “Invertebrate of the Year,” and it’s a great way to start conversations about the diversity of life. Honestly, it makes me wonder how far they’d take the definition—nominating bacteria would be hilarious and so on-brand for an event that seems to enjoy stirring the pot just a little!
J.W. Brewer said,
January 2, 2025 @ 10:15 am
The broad/informal sense of bug that I glossed above as "terrestrial arthropod" is largely covered by senses 3 and 5 of wiktionary's impressive array of 26 different senses. The "bacteria/pathogen sense (their #8) and the software-glitch sense (their #7) are outside that. I'm not sure if there's any colloquial meta-sense of bug that can encompass all of them. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bug
I think there's a broader point here: a word can have multiple senses, and sometimes those are nested, with a given narrow-scope meaning being a subset of a broader-scope meaning (e.g. Hemiptera are a subset of terrestrial arthropods), but sometimes they aren't, or aren't entirely, nested, with there thus being no sense with a broad-enough scope to denote the entire set of all of the more particular senses.
Robert Coren said,
January 2, 2025 @ 10:19 am
@Philip Taylor: And the ladybird is, of course, a beetle, entomologically speaking.
@Xtifr: Yes, I was thinking that the question of whether non-hemiptera can be called "bugs" is somewhat analogous to the question of whether a tomato is a "fruit".
J.W. Brewer said,
January 2, 2025 @ 10:38 am
@Robert Coren: It's sort of a bit backwards, though, because with "tomato" the issue is that the technical scientific sense of "fruit" is wider, rather than than narrower, than the common sense used by ordinary people and the grocery stores they patronize. Wiktionary explains this as "The culinary sense often does not cover true fruits that are savoury or used chiefly in savoury foods, such as tomatoes and peas. These are normally described simply as vegetables." In other words, the "culinary" sense has an additional definitional criterion (basically, sweetness or at least non-savoriness – olives would be another example) that the botanists do not bother with.
bks said,
January 2, 2025 @ 3:39 pm
"Crawfish, or crawdads, or mud bugs"
https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2018/may/06/crawfish-or-crawdads-or-mud-bugs-201805/
Daniel Barkalow said,
January 2, 2025 @ 5:20 pm
No matter what they pick, all the software developers are going to complain about the announcement of the winner: "That's not a bug, it's a feature!"
Gijs Doorenbos said,
January 2, 2025 @ 5:41 pm
There is an IotY competition in the Netherlands; you can see the nominees for the final vote and the winners of the last few years at https://insectvanhetjaar.org/insecten/ .
Andrew Usher said,
January 2, 2025 @ 8:20 pm
I emphatically agree wih Gregory Kusnick on 'planet': first 'planet' was a technical word first, and has never had a popular sense distinct from its technical sense (or senses, since astrology and astronomy diverged)
Pluto probably never should have been considered among the major planets, and at least since the 1980s it became even more obvious that it didn't belong – and I was already saying so. It's an embarrassment that it took a formal vote of the IAU (in a matter they should not have needed to get involved in) to get everyone to change, and has unfortunately created the impression that the definition of 'planet' has changed – it hasn't practically, and formally there was no definition before.
But even when a word starts as common, it can become influenced by the technical sense and change if people find it useful or acceptable. The popular meanings of 'bug' and 'fruit' are those that are found most useful to ordinary people; but the ordinary man today would not call a whale a fish, or a bat a bird, or a cactus a tree, though at least the first was once universal, as those do not have a similar utility – and likewise with calling Pluto a planet.