Butterflies drinking nectar from flowers of an alien Australian Weeping Bottlebrush bush in Cape Town, South Africa, 04 February 2020. Large swarms of butterflies have been seen across the cape peninsula drinking nectar from flowers in the warm summer weather on a variety of plants. (Photo by Nic Bothma/EPA/EFE)





A Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) is pictured at the Sanctuary of El Rosario, Ocampo municipality, Michoacan state, Mexico, on February 3, 2020. The body of Raul Hernandez Romero, a Monarch butterfly defender, was found murdered February 1, 2020, less than a week after the body of environmentalist Homero Gomez was found, the regional prosecutor's office reported. Romero was found in the town of Las Balsitas, in the municipality of Ocampo, Michoacan, with “bruises on different parts of the body and a head wound, caused by a sharp object”, the prosecutor's office said in a statement February 3. (Photo by Enrique Castro/AFP Photo)





A handout photo made available by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) shows desert locust swarm flying over a bush in Ololokwe, Samburu County, Kenya, 22 January 2020. Large swarms of desert locusts have been invading Kenya for weeks, after having infested some 70 thousand hectares of land in Somalia which the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has termed the “worst situation in 25 years” in the Horn of Africa. FAO cautioned that it poses an “unprecedented threat” to food security and livelihoods in the region. Local media reported on 22 January that large swarms of locusts have invaded parts of Kitui County, some 180km east of the capital Nairobi. (Photo by Sven Torfinn/EPA/EFE)





A Hermes Copper (Lycaena hermes) butterfly flutters near Barrett Lake, south of Alpine, southeastern San Diego County, California. The US Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed adding a California butterfly, the rare Hermes copper (Lycaena hermes), to the list of threatened species. (Photo by Michael Couffer/Grey Owl Biological Consulting/AP Photo)





This handout photograph released by Tufts University on February 3, 2020, shows a female glow-worm (Lambyris noctiluca) shining to attract her mate, yet brightening skies will dim her prospects, on June 30, 2012. Decimated by habitat loss and pesticides, fireflies are in deep trouble, with many species facing extinction, according to the first major review of their global status, published February 3, 2020. Adding irony to injury, one of Nature's most entrancing spectacles is also being snuffed out by artificial light pollution, researchers reported in the journal Bioscience. (Photo by Jason Steel/Tufts University/AFP Photo)





In this November 30, 2019 photo, a rooster-tail cicada clings to a tree on the property of Joao Batista Ferreira in Belterra, Para state, Brazil. The area was jungle throughout Ferreira's childhood. Today, his plot is an island of shade and birdsong in the middle of sweeping plantations. (Photo by Leo Correa/AP Photo)





Close up of insects sitting on a flower at Munzur Valley National Park in Ovacik district of Tunceli, Turkey on July 01, 2019. Munzur Valley hosts 1,518 plant species along with butterflies, ladybugs, grasshoppers and spiders. (Photo by Sidar Can Eren/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)





A caterpillar eats blooming poppies in the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California, USA, 19 March 2019. The unusually wet winter in Southern California has given way to a super bloom of wildflowers and an explosion in the painted lady butterflies migrating through California. (Photo by Etienne Laurent/EPA/EFE)





A hawk-moth caterpillar, Daphnis nerii, on a sesame tree in Thailand. (Photo by Natthawut Ngoensanthia/Alamy Stock Photo)





A butterfly is illuminated by the photographer’s camera flash in Springfield, Va. on July 31, 2019. (Photo by Matt McClain/The Washington Post)





Male and female stag beetles. Creating log piles and recording sightings are two ways you can help endangered stag beetles – Britain’s largest land beetle – this summer. The wildlife charity People’s Trust for Endangered Species (PTES) has been recording stag beetle sightings for two decades. You can report any here. This year, PTES is calling for anyone who lives in a known stag beetle area to carry out a more in-depth survey to build on the 21 years of records it has already collected. (Photo by Erhard Nerger/imageBroker/Rex Features/Shutterstock)





A Duke of Burgundy butterfly, which is back from the brink of extinction, sitting on a lady orchid. (Photo by Iain H. Leach/Butterfly Conservation)





A zompopa ant, reared for human consumption, is pictured in the insect farm of biologist Federico Paniagua, as he promotes the ingestion of a wide variety of insects as a low-cost and nutrient-rich food, in Grecia, Costa Rica on July 13, 2019. (Photo by Juan Carlos Ulate/Reuters)





Desert locusts are seen feeding on a tree in a grazing land on the outskirt of Dusamareb in Galmudug region, Somalia on December 22, 2019. (Photo by Feisal Omar/Reuters)





European spruce bark beetles (ips typographus) dig into a spruce tree under water stress on July 25, 2019 in a forest suffering from drought in Hoexter, western Germany. (Photo by Ina Fassbender/AFP Photo)





In Sleepy Eye, Minn., a ladybug flew through the open window of a car driven by the photographer, who took a photo of it on the steering wheel on October 18, 2019. (Photo by Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)





In this January 23, 2019 photo, numerous butterflies can be seen at one of their annual wintering spots in Cerro Pelón Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary near Macheros, Mexico. (Photo by Denise Siraco via AP Photo)





Locusts sit in trees near Miyal village in Banaskantha district some 250km from Ahmedabad on December 27, 2019. A massive locust invasion has destroyed thousands of hectares of crops in northwest India, authorities said, with some experts on December 27 terming it the worst such attack in 25 years. (Photo by Sam Panthaky/AFP Photo)





“Window of Autumn” by Hasan Baglar taken in Nicosia, Cyprus, which has come first in the All About Plants Section for the RHS Photographic Competition 2019. (Photo by Hasan Baglar/RHS/PA Wire Press Association)