Voting has now closed for ABC Radio National‘s top 100 books of the 21st century. While waiting for the countdown, ABC Local Radio has a new question for you. What’s your favourite insect?

Apparently the Cockroaches are not an acceptable answer.

Australian are passionate about their books with RN receiving 287,990 votes on the books that moved or delighted them.

From 1pm on October 18 and 19 RN will host the countdown live on-air. If you’ve voted and are following on RN also collected the favourites of Trent Dalton, Kate Grenville, Marcus Zusak and more which you can read about here.

Now, ABC Local Radio stations are searching for the 2025 Australian Insect of The Year.

You can select from six remarkably different finalists, with the winner announced on ABC Local Radio on Saturday November 8.

The finalists are:

Bird dropping beetle (Excastra albopilosa)

Christmas beetle (Anoplognathus monatus)

Giant rainforest mantis (Heirodula Majuscula)

Graphic flutterer dragonfly (Rhyothemis graphiptera)

Greengrocer cicada (Cyclochila australasiae)

Mountain katydid (Acripeza reticulata)

Last year’s inaugural winner by a huge margin was the blue-banded bee (Amegilla cingulata).

Will 2025 prove to be the year of the dragon? Or is “beetle-mania” set to make a return?

You can vote for the 2025 Australian Insect of The Year here.