Should we help maggots and caterpillars?

Should we help maggots and caterpillars?

Author: BBC World Service October 24, 2025 Duration: 27:12

We all know insects are important, but one CrowdScience listener worries that they don’t seem to have equal billing when it comes to human love and attention.

In Scotland’s capital Edinburgh, listener Ruth loves to sit and listen to the birds, the bees and the hoverflies as they go about their daily chores. And it’s got her wondering why bees and butterflies seem to get all the conservation efforts. What do we need to do to protect butterflies as less beautiful caterpillars, and ladybirds as less glamorous larvae? Are people even aware that insects exist in multiple stages of a lifecycle, and that around the world, insect populations are facing perilous levels of decline.

Presenter Alex Lathbridge is on a mission to identify the other unsung insect heroes. Along the way we meet Dr Caitlin Johnstone and Dr Nick Balfour at the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh, who help listener Ruth find out about the lifestyles and lifecycles of hoverflies.

We meet the midge that pollinates cocoa crops in Ghana, as well as Dr Tonya Lander from Oxford University and Dr Acheampong Atta-Boateng from the University of Arizona who have been studying them. And Marc Vaez-Olivera from the company Polyfly introduces us to the billions of hoverflies helping to double avocado yields in Spain.

We also learn what we can all do to help keep insects in our gardens… even if that may involve sacrificing a cabbage or two.

Presenter: Alex Lathbridge

Producer: Marnie Chesterton

Editor: Ben Motley

(Photo: Caterpillar eating flowering plant with pink background - stock photo Credit: Raquel Lomas via Getty Images)


Curiosity drives discovery, and CrowdScience from the BBC World Service is built entirely on that principle. Each episode begins not with a scripted lesson, but with a question sent in by a listener from anywhere in the world. These aren't simple queries with easy answers; they are the wonderfully complex, often quirky puzzles about everyday phenomena and cosmic mysteries that make us all stop and wonder. What does silence sound like? Could we ever photosynthesize like plants? How does a crowd's mood physically spread? The team then embarks on a genuine investigative journey, tracking down the specialists at the very edge of our understanding-neuroscientists, ecologists, physicists, and engineers-to piece together credible, compelling answers. Listening to this podcast feels like having a direct line to the labs and field sites where knowledge is being created. The conversations are deep yet accessible, transforming abstract concepts into relatable stories. It’s a collective exploration where listener curiosity sets the agenda, making each episode a unique and democratic look at the machinery of our world and beyond. You become part of a global community pondering life, Earth, and the universe, one thoughtful question at a time.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 50

CrowdScience
Podcast Episodes
What are these strange rocks? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 26:28
CrowdScience listener Liana from Canada got in touch to ask about some very specific rocks she’d seen on an island in Indonesia – jagged, rugged and a very strange shape: hexagonal. They were in long columns, and clicked…
How did plants evolve to attract insects? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 26:28
Many plants need pollen from another plant of the same species in order to reproduce, but they don’t have legs so they can’t simply walk around looking for a mate. As a result, many of them rely on animals to transfer po…
Do animals care about the past? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 26:28
“What separates humans from animals, is an interest in the past”. That’s a 900-year-old quote from a textbook that Nigerian listener Taiwo came across, and he wrote to CrowdScience to ask if modern science would agree. M…
How does Bluetooth work? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 26:30
CrowdScience listener Rachel uses Bluetooth headphones on her cycle to work, seamlessly playing music from her phone without using wires. But how does this technology send information through the air? To find out, Rachel…
Why does paper fold so well? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 26:29
CrowdScience listener Haruka has been making origami cranes out of paper since she was a child. Creating one out of a cloth napkin, however, was a next-level challenge. It gave her a new appreciation of paper’s excellent…
Do plants have personalities? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 29:16
CrowdScience listener George is showing Alex Lathbridge around a small, dark, and extremely hot shed, just outside the city of Accra in Ghana. Inside are row after row of shelves, stacked high with bulging grow-bags. And…
What's the deal with tongues? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 26:28
Why is there such a variety of tongues in the animal kingdom? CrowdScience listener Dale has observed that his dog’s tongue is different from his and so is his cat’s. He’d like to know the reason. Caroline Steel visits L…
Why am I an introvert? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 26:28
CrowdScience listener Daniel in Accra, Ghana is an introvert. Or at least, he thinks he is. And he’s worried that his preference for quiet spaces and lower social interaction might be holding him back in life. But what i…
Why do we itch? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 26:28
Why do we feel itchy? So many listeners have emailed in with questions about itchiness, and presenter Anand Jagatia on the case. We explore why we itch, the different types of itch, the different causes, and why scratchi…
How come sea levels are rising faster in some places than others? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 31:24
As our oceans warm due to climate change, sea levels are rising. It ought to be straightforward – as water gets warmer, it increases in volume. All the world’s oceans are connected, so how come sea levels are rising at d…