Lily Duval’s first piece for New Zealand Geographic is a news story about the resurgence of the magnificent Canterbury knobbled weevil which bears the delightfully bumpy Latin name Hadramphus tuberculatus (page 19). The artist and critter expert filed straight from the field after a happy day fossicking through speargrass helping Department of Conservation staff count the bugs. Duval also painted the weevil for her 2024 book Six-Legged Ghosts: The insects of Aotearoa—and yep, there it is on her T-shirt. “I’m a bit obsessed with this bug,” she says. “It’s my favourite insect so I’ve been pumped to be out there seeing them in the wild.”
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