The bogong moth was once so abundant it was mistaken for weather. During Sydney’s Olympic Games in 2000, a swarm of bogong moths attracted by stadium lights was so huge that meteorologists mistook it for a rain cloud.
But the species known as “deberra” in Taungurung language – an insect with deep cultural and ecological importance, but which is smaller and lighter than a paperclip – has not returned to those numbers since the population collapsed by up to 99.5% in the two years before 2019.
