How hunting for bugs is linked to Daylight Saving Time

The Team from Auckland Museum

Fossicking amongst the flowers, turning over leaves and inspecting tree trunks: all essential parts of hunting for bugs, but not your typical after-work activity. However in 1895, George Hudson, a New Zealand entomologist, proposed a two hour time shift for this very reason, so he’d have more after-work hours of sunshine to go bug hunting in the summer, and thus the modern concept of daylight saving time came to be!

As you enjoy your lighter summer afternoons now that daylight saving time has started, keep an eye out for bugs in your backyard – you never know what you might find!

Here is John Early our Curator of Entomology collecting kelp fly larvae in Takapuna, Robert Vennell our Botany Collection Manager collecting dragonflies in Piha and the daughters of our Land Fauna Collection Manager Ruby Moore off to collect insects from a stream in Ngataki. All in a day's work here at Auckland Museum!