Winner of Invertebrate of the Year 2026 crowned – and it is the size of a grain of rice — SkimNews
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- The leaf sheep (Costasiella kuroshimae), a neon green underwater slug about the size of a grain of rice, won the Guardian's Invertebrate of the Year 2026 after hundreds of thousands of readers read about and shared appreciation for the shortlisted creatures.
- Broadcaster Chris Packham, announcing the winner, said the leaf sheep "harvests photosynthetic material from the algae it feeds upon and builds its own solar panels," with the species having first been described by science in 1993 and living in tropical waters around Japan, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
- The moscardón (Bombus dahlbomii), the world's largest bumblebee native to increasingly threatened Patagonia, finished second; the horseshoe crab, a blue-blooded arthropod that predates the dinosaurs, came third; the common woodlouse was fourth; and the bootlace worm — one of the world's longest animals — came 10th.
- Unlike the "popular landslides" that saw the tardigrade and common earthworm win in earlier years, this year's contest was described as a much closer race, reflecting what the Guardian frames as the increasingly popular competition now in its third year.
- The competition celebrates invertebrates — at least 1.7 million known species making up roughly 97% of all animal life — whose unpaid ecological labor pollinating crops, filtering water, recycling waste, and fertilizing soils, the source notes, human life depends on.
Why it matters: The Guardian's third annual contest drew hundreds of thousands of readers and its tightest finish yet, suggesting growing public appetite for celebrating the spineless creatures that make up 97% of animal species and perform the pollination, water filtration, and soil fertility work human survival depends on.
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