The honeybee mite, Varroa destructor, finally breached Australia’s biosecurity defences four years ago, and is here to stay. Even more concerning, our standard treatments – such as specialised pesticides – are already failing.

What does this mean for Australians, and what can we do about it?

Roughly the size of a pinhead, the parasitic mite is regarded as the most destructive pest of honeybees worldwide. It feeds on bees, weakening colonies and causing their collapse.

For decades, Australia was the only continent free of the mite. That changed in 2022, when Varroa was detected in sentinel hives at the Port of Newcastle, New South Wales.

An ambitious eradication campaign was launched, but abandoned by 2023. Today, Varroa is established across much of Australia’s eastern and southern states. The focus has shifted from eradication to management, and we now face a new threat – treatment-resistant mites.

Varroa is more than just a beekeeping problem. Managed honeybees underpin a significant portion of Australian agriculture, contributing about A$14 billion annually. More than 30% of food production depends on pollination from bees. When bee colonies collapse, the effects ripple through food production, farm profitability and ultimately food prices.

Native pollinators also play an important role, but they cannot fully replace managed honeybees for many large-scale crops.

This makes the health of honeybee populations critical to both food security and biodiversity.

Chemical control is under pressure

Controlling Varroa is costly and labour intensive for both commercial and backyard beekeepers. Current strategies rely heavily on chemical miticides – a type of pesticide engineered to control mites. These fall into two broad groups.

“Hard” miticides, such as formamidines (amitraz or Apivar) and pyrethroids (Bayvarol), are synthetic chemicals designed to kill mites quickly. “Soft” miticides, including formic acid, oxalic acid and thymol, are naturally derived compounds that tend to linger less in the environment.

While these treatments can suppress mite populations, they’re not a long-term solution. Varroa is well known to evolve resistance, and pyrethroid- and amitraz-resistant Varroa mites have already been found in Australia less than four years after the mite’s arrival.

A new generation of pest control

As conventional treatments falter, researchers are exploring new technologies. One of the most promising is RNA interference, or RNAi. RNA is a molecule found in all living organisms that helps control how genes are expressed.

RNAi is a natural process where small RNA fragments “switch off” specific genes, blocking the production of essential proteins the pests need to survive. The RNA fragments can be delivered to bees via sugar syrup. This then gets distributed through the hive and Varroa are exposed either by feeding or absorption.

Read more:
Explainer: what is RNA?

RNAi pesticides are designed to be species specific, meaning they’re unlikely to cause harm to other organisms. This makes them more desirable than chemical pesticides that can have widespread effects on beneficial insects, the environment and even human health if not applied correctly.

RNAi treatments are also unlikely to give rise to genetic resistance. This is because resistance usually involves single-point changes in the gene sequence, while these treatments target larger gene segments. RNAi is also exceptionally safe because it don’t linger in the environment as much as a chemical pesticide might.

Furthermore, RNAi doesn’t create genetically modified organisms, because the RNA fragments don’t become part of the host genome.

Not just theoretical

RNAi pesticides are no longer theoretical. In 2025, the United States approved the first RNAi-based Varroa treatment, marketed as Norroa. This product targets a gene essential for mite reproduction, effectively acting as a form of “birth control” that reduces population growth within hives.

However, Norroa has its limitations. Because it suppresses reproduction rather than killing mites outright, it’s most effective when mite numbers are low. In heavily infested colonies, it can’t reduce populations quickly enough to prevent collapse.

Research is now focused on making RNAi more effective and adaptable. One key question is which genes to target. Many current research approaches focus on “housekeeping” genes – ones essential to mite biology and therefore survival. But these are often similar across species, raising the risk the treatment could kill other species we don’t want to wipe out.

Our research group is exploring an alternative strategy to target genes involved in the mite nervous system or muscles. These are the same systems affected by existing miticides, but RNAi would provide greater specificity.

A pest like no other

Varroa is the latest in a long line of invasive pests to reach Australia. But its impact is unusually far-reaching, touching agriculture, ecosystems and food supply.

The situation is already serious. Beekeepers are facing rising costs for miticides (which may or may not work) and hive losses, and treatment options are narrowing.

Yet there is also a window of opportunity, and Australia can still take proactive steps to manage Varroa effectively. Norroa and similar emerging RNAi treatments are not yet available for use in Australia, and would need to receive approval from the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA).

Investment in research, including next-generation tools like RNAi, will be critical. So too will be coordinated management strategies, monitoring, and support for beekeepers adapting to this new reality.

The alarm bells are ringing. But with the right mix of innovation and action, we still have a chance to protect Australia’s bees and safeguard this billion-dollar industry.

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Much more recently, one of its wing bones was discovered in Brazil, transformed over the aeons into a fossil made of a complex assemblage of different chemicals and minerals.

And in new research published in iScience, my colleagues and I found that the fossil bone still holds secrets of the creature’s life, including microscopic inner structures of its bones and molecular traces of its biology and diet.

A fossil treasure from Brazil

The fossil comes from the Romualdo Formation in the Araripe Basin of northeastern Brazil, one of the world’s most spectacular fossil deposits. The site has yielded exquisitely preserved fish, turtles, crocodile relatives, and pterosaurs.

Many fossils from the Romualdo Formation are preserved inside rounded rock nodules known as carbonate concretions. These mineral structures form shortly after burial, effectively sealing the remains from the environment. Think of them as natural time capsules.

Our fossil is a hollow wing bone, or phalanx. Pterosaur bones were thin and lightweight to aid flight, so they are rarely preserved in such detail.

Using high-resolution CT scanning, we examined the bone’s interior without breaking it open. The scans revealed layers of minerals with different densities filling the cavity – evidence of a complex sequence of chemical events that preserved the bone. We used several other methods to identify the minerals.

Microbes helped decay – and preservation

The fossil’s exceptional preservation may have begun with decay. As the pterosaur’s body decomposed on the ancient seafloor, microbes broke down tissues and altered sediment chemistry. These changes triggered the rapid formation of phosphate minerals.

One mineral in particular, called fluorapatite, formed within and around the bone, stabilising delicate features before they could be lost. Under the microscope, we could still see microscopic canals that once carried nutrients through living tissue.

Mineral analysis revealed evidence of microbial activity. We detected barite and celestite, minerals associated with sulphur-using bacteria. These microbes drove chemical reactions that helped create the conditions necessary for preservation.

In other words, ancient microbes didn’t just decay the body, they also helped preserve it for science.

A mineral vault for ancient molecules

After early phosphate minerals stabilised the bone, a sequence of calcite layers gradually formed inside and around it. These derived largely from carbon released during the decay of fatty tissue.

First, a thin layer of fine-grained calcite formed along the bone surface, followed by a second, slightly coarser-grained one. Over a longer period of time, larger calcite crystals formed, ultimately filling the bone cavity.

Analysis showed this calcite was low in an isotope called carbon-13, which indicates it partly came from organic carbon sources, such as fatty lipids and residual bone material. In contrast, any remaining organic matter in the bone appears to have relatively high levels of carbon-13.

The multi-layered mineral barrier acted like a geological vault, protecting delicate structures and organic compounds trapped in the bone from chemical degradation for millions of years. This protection allowed molecular traces such as steroid biomarkers and collagen fibre patterns to survive, giving us a rare window into the biology and diet of this ancient flying reptile.

Molecular traces of ancient life

Within this mineralised structure, we detected molecular traces of life called steranes, which are derived from steroidal lipids once present in living cells. To our knowledge, this is the first time steroid biomarkers have been reported from a pterosaur fossil.

Even more exciting, these molecules carry dietary clues. Carbon isotope analysis of cholesterol-derived compounds suggests this pterosaur likely fed on fish or squid-like marine animals, which is what we would expect from the shape of its teeth and skull.

The fossil also preserves microscopic structures resembling collagen fibres, the protein framework that strengthens bone. Although chemically altered over millions of years, the fibre patterns remain visible and resemble those seen in modern birds, which are distant relatives of pterosaurs.

Reading fossils in new ways

Discoveries like this one are transforming how we study fossils. Instead of examining only bone shapes, we can now recover chemical and molecular fingerprints as well.

Understanding how these exceptional fossils form may help identify other specimens capable of preserving ancient biomolecules. More broadly, our findings show that under the right conditions, molecular traces of life can survive for more than 100 million years.

Even after millions upon millions of years, ancient life can still leave behind chemical clues waiting to be discovered. As analytical techniques continue to advance and unusual modes of preservation become better understood, there is increasing potential to recover previously inaccessible information.

In the future, we may even be able to detect ancient DNA fragments or other molecular remnants in exceptionally preserved fossils, including those of dinosaurs and pterosaurs.

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The test that determines what gets written on a birth certificate is a visual inspection of newborn genitals. This works for most births but not all.

The planet vote didn’t settle the debate at the time, nor nearly two decades later.

The age clause produces a parallel problem at the other end of life.

A girl, on the bill’s definition, is not a woman. Existing legislation that uses “women” to cover both adults and children breaks and would have to be patched with a new vocabulary of “female children” or something else.

The bill promises clarity but generates a definitional mess. So why pass it? ACT’s Karen Chhour said the bill was not about science, but about whether ordinary people are “allowed to trust their own eyes, speak honestly”.

Labour opposition MP Camila Belich gave the clearest example. New Zealand’s abortion law refers to “women” and where a statute does not specify an age of maturity, the default is 20. Under the bill as drafted, women under 20 may lose access to abortion.

But women and men aren’t planets. The bill’s reclassification tells people whose lives will be deeply affected by the definition that the question has been resolved.

There is something strange about deciding what something, or who somebody, is by counting votes. The result was awkward enough when scientists were voting in a domain where they knew what they were talking about.

Take her at her word. The bill isn’t resting on biology but on the social intuition that everyone knows what a woman or a man is and on the wish to have that intuition ratified somewhere durable.

When chromosomes don’t match what you see

It misses out on the variations where external anatomy appears typical for one sex but internal organs don’t match, and it breaks down when what’s visible doesn’t clearly fit either category.

Take gametes seriously for a moment. Does “biological female” mean producing eggs? If it does, then women past menopause are not female under the definition – yet they are a large part of the constituency the bill claims to defend.

This is a piece of legislation that treats a complex cluster of biological traits as if it were one settled thing, and ties legal meaning to the pretence.

Which brings us back to Pluto. Its reclassification was harmless because Pluto doesn’t care. It will continue its gravitational dance with other celestial bodies regardless of humans calling it a planet or not.

The bill either excludes them, or it relies on a looser notion, something like a developmental pathway toward egg production or a phenotype historically associated with female reproductive function. At that point the word “biological” is no longer doing the crisp, settling work the bill needs it to do.

The production of gametes (sperm and eggs) offers a more stable definition, but it doesn’t substantiate the definition expected in the bill, because boys and older people don’t produce gametes. Nor do people with conditions where they either don’t produce gametes at all or their gametes don’t match the visual test.

Promising clarity, delivering the opposite

Attorney-General Chris Bishop flagged this, warning of “discrimination on the basis of age”.

But there isn’t a single biological test, and the bill does not specify one. Instead, biology is messier, more qualified and less politically useful.

It hasn’t. And it cannot be resolved by a vote in parliament any more than the nature of Pluto could be resolved by a vote at a scientific conference.

Now New Zealand’s parliament is preparing to vote on the legal definition of “man” and “woman”. If scientists couldn’t end the controversy over what counts as a planet, why should we expect politicians to define who counts as a woman or man?

And now we want to do the same with humans?

In August 2006, at the general assembly of the International Astronomical Union in Prague, astronomers voted on a new definition of a planet, and Pluto was demoted.

If you have to legislate the meaning of woman and man, you have already admitted the word was doing more than describing biology.

Pluto didn’t change, only its definition.

Chromosomes can be used as a more objective test. But while having a Y chromosome makes you male most of the time, there are too many exceptions and also diversity across species.

The bill assumes there is a settled biological test for whether a person is female or male – one the law can simply borrow and apply. Marcroft thus frames the change as restoring “biological reality” to the law.

The Legislation (Definitions of Woman and Man) Amendment Bill was introduced by New Zealand First MP Jenny Marcroft and passed its first reading on May 20. It asks parliament to define woman in law as “an adult human biological female” and man as “an adult human biological male”.

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