The leaf sheep lives in tropical waters around Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines. Photograph: Marli Wakeling\/Alamy<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve always tried to champion invertebrates on Springwatch. One of my greatest joys filming the series over the years was meeting a naturalist who knew about tree slugs. I\u2019d spent my life looking at trees with slime trails going up their trunks but I\u2019d never bothered to get a ladder and investigate. So the discovery that every night these slugs venture out and climb to the tops of oak trees and then slither back down again before dawn breaks is amazing. And it\u2019s all happening just over the fence.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m 65 and the other day I caught an insect in my kitchen that I\u2019d never before thought to identify. It turned out to be a parasitic wasp, one of more than 330 species of netelia<\/a>, a genus of ichneumonid wasps. It was a cinnamon colour, with huge eyes because it is nocturnal and parasitises large moth caterpillars. It actually packs a powerful sting for humans, which I had no idea about. We are constantly learning about the miraculous alternative worlds unfolding all around us. In this invertebrate universe, there is an enormous repository of fascination just waiting to be discovered.<\/p>\n I have previously encountered the third-placed invertebrate in this year\u2019s competition. I once visited a beach in Florida where horseshoe crabs<\/a> had spawned and died. There were so many that you couldn\u2019t walk on the beach. It was like some sort of Jurassic apocalypse. Absolutely extraordinary.<\/p>\n A horseshoe crab on the seabed in Palawan, the Philippines. Photograph: Laurent Ballesta\/Wildlife Photographer of the Year\/PA<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t know much about this year\u2019s winner, the leaf sheep, until it appeared on the Guardian shortlist<\/a>. Then I read up on it a bit more. Physically, they are one of these animals that might as well come from another planet; they have an amazing structure and life cycle. Taking in algae and using it to power yourself \u2013 only four and a half billion years of evolution could come up with something that wacko. It\u2019s absolutely brilliant.<\/p>\n Learning about these animals and celebrating them is important, but we want to know what we can do to help them too. The tempting thing to say is plant nectar sources and allow your garden to go a bit wild, if you\u2019re lucky enough to have a garden. We take joy in making spaces for these creatures in our local neighbourhoods and that\u2019s a battle, but it\u2019s not going to win the war.<\/p>\n We are running out of time \u2013 and here in the UK, we\u2019ve got to lobby for better pesticide regulations. They\u2019ve done it in France and reduced pesticide use on farmland. We banned insect-killing neonicotinoids in 2018 and yet this year, they have again been approved<\/a> for \u201cemergency\u201d use on sugar beet crops. This should be causing an outcry. We need the public to pressurise the government into reforming and reducing pesticide usage.<\/p>\n
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