With Halloween coming up and summer around the corner, it is time for bloodsucking beasties to come out. Insect curator Julia Kasper specialises in flies and bloodsucking insects and has a strong interest in the historical and cultural aspects of entomology. Here, she sheds a bright light on the vampire world and explains what actually caused the diseases that were blamed on – and furthered the belief in – the vampire.Read more

By:
On:
In: History, Science
Julia sat on a board walk leaning over a turquoise colour hot pool

Did you know there’s an endemic species of mosquito that exclusively occurs in New Zealand’s thermal pools? We don’t know much about this species, so in October and March, bug expert Julia Kasper made it her mission to find it – a mission that included a harness and a gas monitor, ʻin case of toxic gas eruptions’.Read more

By:
On:
In: Science