Editorial and President’s Letter – Antenna: Volume 50 (1) 2026

The other items in this issue are also worth their weight in gold. We have a fascinating Research Spotlight on vibrational communication in insects, an article on how the law does and doesn’t protect insects, an article on how insect conservation and apple production go hand-in hand in South Africa, and an article on the work being done by our Conservation Science Team to help save the Large Blue butterfly in Denmark.

We see the welcome return of Embiopteran Tools. The Embioptera are the webspinners, so you will soon see the relevance of the title. We also feature some of the pictures which won a gold star in the Society’s photographic competition.

We have several new and wonderful staff members in the Society, so thought it time to provide a ‘Who’s Who’ so you can put faces to names and roles. Hopefully, you will meet many of them in-person at our forthcoming events – there are reports on recent events herein to tempt you.

Walter Leal is the subject of our Honorary Fellow Interview, and we celebrate the incredible entomological life of Ken Davey, who was also an Honorary Fellow.

Many thanks to all who have contributed to this issue – and to the past 50-years of Antenna!

Richard Harrington Hon.FRES, Antenna Editor

Today, there is a well-established appreciation of insects as vital contributors to ecosystems and as organisms worthy of conservation and restoration. And entomology is increasingly interdisciplinary.

The RES itself has also changed. This year, our headquarters will return to London, to a fabulous, modern, welcoming building for staff and members. We will continue to work to be more diverse and inclusive when Antenna was first published, the RES had never had a female president, and now it’s had five! And we will reaffirm our commitment to advancing insect science, and scientists, for generations to come.

Congratulations and here’s to the next 50 volumes of Antenna.

Јane Stout, President
Royal Entomological Society

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Correspondence: From the President

It is difficult to understand the urge to travel to other planets in the hope of finding those little green men, when we have perfectly good candidates here on Earth, antennae and all. I refer, of course, to the insects, those strange beings so different from ourselves and our fellow vertebrates, that were already a going concern long before we intruded. The insects, with their external skeletons and complex mouthparts, their six legs, one or two pairs of wings and, above all, the unorthodox way in which many of them grow up, are far stranger than anything that could ever be thought up by man, even in his most imaginative flights of fancy.

These strange fellow inhabitants, green or not, are found almost everywhere: they inhabit the surface and burrow deep within the soil; they live both on and in fresh waters and, above all, they are present in the air, actively flying or drifting even over the oceans. Hardly a plant in the garden or field, scarcely a tree in the forest is without its associated insects. Human habitations too provide shelter and food for insects, some conspicuously flying round the light, others less conspicuously chewing away at our precious books or even the very structure of houses themselves. Yet others, with seeming consummate skill, push infinitely refined hypodermic needles into the very lumen of our capillaries and getting away with a drink of fresh warm blood. Insects are everywhere from the high arctic to the tropics. J.B.S.

Haldane once described the weevil as God’s favourite animal, so many variations are there on the curculionid theme. But for sheer numbers of individuals and exploitation of every habitat, I often think that ants must be counted a close rival. Over much of the world it is almost impossible to touch any vegetation, whether the limb of an isolated tree in open savanna or a blade of grass at the edge of a tiny island, without a column of ants immediately invading one’s arm.

Insects, then, are ubiquitous, with vast numbers of individuals in the cooler regions and vast numbers of species in the tropics. Their strangeness has invited our curiosity and attention from earliest times. They are the ideal subjects for studies on behaviour, cytology, development, ecology, endocrinology, flight, genetics, growth, physiology, population dynamics, sociology … and so on. But insects can be creatures of great beauty in themselves, both in form and function: butterflies are surely unsurpassed by anything in nature, not even among plants or birds; and what could be more fascinatingly beautiful than the movements of a dragonfly hawking over a summer pond?

Insects, however, have their darkside: they compete with us for our food. They bring about such gigantic losses of the crops we cultivate as to threaten our livelihood, not only during the growing period of these crops, but also during storage after harvesting. And these problems multiply as we intensify our effort. Insects, too, still bring disease and suffering to untold millions; it is sobering to reflect that, apart from starvation (also largely an entomological problem) malaria alone still ranks as the most important killer of mankind, destroying about one and a half million people every year, and bringing misery to countless others.

If the appalling economic and medical problems resulting from these rivals are somewhat daunting, let us not forget for a moment the benefits that insects also bring. These are not marginal; our very existence depends on them: flowering plants, or at least a very high proportion of them, would not be present today were it not for the activity of insects. Quite apart from its economic importance, this unlikely association between two such disparate groups of living creatures is a never ending source of wonder. It was to foster the study of these strange, sometimes beautiful, sometimes sinister but always interesting and often informative fellow beings that the Entomological Society of London was founded nearly 150 years ago.

And it is to further these studies that the Society continues to flourish today. But the Society was also created to bring together those of us who share these interests, whether in our spare time or as paid professionals. Today, with an increased number of Fellows, many of whom live and work abroad, this aspect is even more important. Antenna seeks to fulfil this want.

Antenna replaces the former Proceedings; it is a bulletin aimed not only to cover the regular meetings of the Society, but also to bring matters of entomological interest to the attention of Fellows wherever they may be. It will serve as a link between Fellows, providing correspondence columns for those who wish to air their views or bring certain matters to the attention of others. It will also provide news of Fellows and act generally as a vehicle of communication and exchange of ideas. I congratulate the editor, Peter Hammond and his able assistants, Alan Stubbs and Dick Vane-Wright, and all who have had a share in the planning of this new venture, and wish Antenna the success it clearly deserves.

Ј.D. Gillett, President 1977 to 1979
Royal Entomological Society

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