How did a Kiwi woman scared of bugs end up writing a book about them? Kim Knight talks to author and illustrator Lily Duval about Six-legged Ghosts and its call for greater insect appreciation. We landed to a text from the neighbour. Our burglar alarm had gone off, but a property check revealed nothing untoward.
At home, the warning light for the backdoor flashed. And on the floor, near that door - a winged cockroach only slightly smaller than a mouse. I stomped.
Who wouldn’t? “That’s a hard one,” answers Lily Duval. “I’m going to leave that to your discretion.” Duval is an artist, author and staunch defender of insects - even the ones the rest of us hate.
Yes, she agrees, there are invasive, introduced species of cockroach. And, she suspects, living in Lyttelton means she has fewer encounters with the burglar alarm-activating behemoths that plague Auckland homes. Still: “Cockroaches are a pretty demonised species .
I think, around the world, they even top spiders. But our New Zealand native cockroaches are not interested in coming inside your house. They’re hanging out on tree trunks, they’re breaking down organic matter in the forest and they’re a really vital part of the ecosystem.
And I just recently learned there’s an alpine species that can freeze and come back to life - so they also have some crazy superpowers!” Duval’s new book, Six-legged Ghosts: The Insects of Aotearoa , begins with a surprising confession. “I am not a lifelong insect l.