By Oscar Parry
The National Insect Expo will be returning to Woodend this year, attracting international visitors and showcasing the largest insect collection of central Victoria.
Australia’s largest insect exhibition, the expo will showcase several national and international exhibitors, including The Central Victorian Regional Insect Collection, which consists of 32 orders of insects and a broad range of invertebrates.
National Inspect Expo director Dr Bert Candusio adopted much of this collection from La Trobe University in Bendigo, along with La Trobe honorary associate Jenny Shield, to eventually be relocated to Woodend.
This year’s expo in October has already seen interest from international specialist collectors and businesses.
Mr Candusio said the insect expo started three years ago as a way of raising funds for the volunteers who are assisting with cataloguing and curating this collection, which includes about 250,000 specimens.
“In 2022, we, pardon the pun, put out our feelers to all in the entomological industry … to showcase what they do,” Mr Candusio said.
The expo is also designed to raise awareness of the important role that insects and invertebrates play in conservation.
Mr Candusio said that the amount of visitors to the previous shows, including international insect collectors and breeders, took him by surprise.
Many of the specimens in The Central Victorian Regional Insect Collection have not been named or previously recorded.
“I can comfortably say that at least 20 per cent of everything that … will be represented in this collection will be new and undescribed species,” Mr Candusio said.
“When it comes to insects and invertebrates, we’re in no-man’s land. I can easily take a group of students into any regional forest or bushland anywhere in Victoria, and in half an hour, get them to collect a new and undescribed specimen. That’s what makes the science exciting.”
The collection includes many insects found in Macedon Ranges state forests in the ’60s.
Mr Candusio said the collection is important because it’s “the only representative entomological collection for the entire Central Victoria area that now exists.”
The Central Victorian Regional Insect Collection organisation hopes to develop a permanent home for the collection in Woodend, which will also operate as a research facility for students and offer in-house courses.
This year’s National Insect Expo will take place from October 4–6 at the Woodend Buffalo Sports Stadium.
Details: cvric.com.au/expo-2024
