Vote #1: Insect of the year 2026
Vote for the Mallee Bronze Azure butterfly! Voting is open on the ABC website until the end of October.
Look at that face! The Mallee Bronze Azure butterfly. (Image: Daniel Meier)
Mallee Bronze Azure butterfly for Insect of the Year
Some exciting news: our Mallee Bronze Azure is a finalist in the 2026 ABC Australian Insect of the Year! Zoos Victoria put our little butterfly forward, and an expert panel picked it as one of six finalists. It's up against a gold Christmas beetle, a glow-worm, a ladybird, a fly with eyes on stalks, and a rather glamorous swallowtail.
On looks alone, the competition is stiff. But the Mallee Bronze Azure has the best story of the lot. It has no food plant. Instead, its caterpillars find their way into Sugar Ant nests. They spend all their time underground and get cared for like royalty. But (we think) the caterpillars are secretly eating the ant larvae! Diabolical? Yes. Fascinating? Absolutely.
The Sugar Ant Camponotus terebrans, with eggs of the Mallee Bronze Azure butterfly (Image: Daniel Meier)
A wee in the bush can save a butterfly
The Sugar Ants are real heroes for the butterfly. The Mallee Bronze can only survive where there are big, healthy Sugar Ant colonies to raise its caterpillars, so looking after the ants is the key to saving the butterfly. That’s why it is important to protect habitat and entire ecosystems to keep them functioning, and …
You can help! These ants love wee! Mallee soils are low in nutrients, and scientists have found that this Sugar Ant will mine dried urine patches for weeks to get the nitrogen it needs. So, if you wee in the bush, you are feeding the ants and helping to save a butterfly!
Have you seen this before? It’s thousands of Sugar Ants feeding on wee at night. I’m not telling whose wee!
Floods then fire hits the Mallee Bronze
And the Mallee Bronze Azure is in real trouble. The butterfly survives in only a handful of places in Victoria and South Australia, and the 2022 Murray River flood impacted breeding sites across its range. Here at Raakajilm, on Latji Latji Country next to Hattah-Kulkyne National Park, we look after the largest known population, and as well as flood, our population was impacted by bushfire in January 2026. The species has been prioritised for assessment as threatened under the national EPBC Act.
Detail of dew on the wings of a Mallee Bronze Azure butterfly (Image: Daniel Meier)
So why does a popularity contest matter? Because insects rarely get the attention they deserve, and attention is often what leads to research, funding and protection. A win would put this overlooked Mallee butterfly in front of a lot of people who've never heard of it.
How to vote
Voting is open on the ABC website until the end of October. The winner will be announced on 9 November, at the start of Australian Pollinator Week. Please vote, and tell your friends, your family, your community …
Thank you to Zoos Victoria for the nomination, and your work Fighting Extinction, and to everyone who has helped us get to know this remarkable butterfly. Fingers (and antennae) crossed!