Bee, Mosquito, Pidgeon

When it comes to climate issues, there are some animals that are more popular than others.

For years the polar bear has been the symbol of the climate crisis, displayed on signs at demonstrations and on newspaper covers.

In the early 2000s, a study published in ‘Nature’ suggested that monarch caterpillars might be threatened by transgenic crops, and the monarch butterfly, a common and fairly ordinary insect, became the symbol of the fight for biodiversity.

Bees have a hashtag and a dedicated day (#worldbeeday, #savethebees), while other less photogenic but equally essential insects for our ecosystems do not enjoy the same popularity: we do not celebrate World Mosquito Day.

It is true that online we tend to empathise with certain familiar species, preferring spectacular representations. A trip to #animalsoftiktok is enough to confirm this hypothesis.

Even when talking about biodiversity, some animals are mentioned more often than others.

Which animals are at the centre of the debate on urban biodiversity in Italy (according to YouTube videos)?
Are there some animals that are more popular and others that are forgotten?

To answer this question, we collected 546 videos from YouTube about urban biodiversity.

Conferences

Disclosure Videos

Promotional Spots

We have extracted all mentions of animals from the audio of each video.

1 → Bee
2 → Mosquito
3 → Pidgeon
4 → Butterfly
5 → Wolf

6 → Hawk
7 → Crow
8 → Boar
9 → Gull
10 → Woodpecker

11 → Dog
12 → Fox
13 → Mouse
14 → Ladybird
15 → Eagle

16 → Parrot
17 → Fly
18 → Turtle
19 → Frog
20 → Lion

21 → Spider
22 → Hen
23 → Bear
24 → Hedgehog
25 → Robin

1 → Ape
2 → Zanzara
3 → Piccione
4 → Farfalla
5 → Lupo
6 → Falco
7 → Cornacchia
8 → Cinghiale
9 → Gabbiano

10 → Picchio
11 → Cane
12 → Volpe
13 → Topo
14 → Coccinella
15 → Aquila
16 → Pappagallo
17 → Mosca
18 → Tartaruga

19 → Rana
20 → Leone
21 → Ragno
22 → Gallina
23 → Orso
24 → Riccio
25 → Pettirosso

Insects are the most frequently mentioned category of animals.

Followed by birds...

...and mammals.

Among the less popular animals: reptiles, fish and amphibians.

Bottom of the list: Arachnids, Bacteria, Other Invertebrates and Crustaceans.

The frequency with which an animal is mentioned does not necessarily reflect its popularity.

Some types of animals appear in videos with few views, while others star in videos viewed by thousands of users.

Deer, wolf, and wild boar, though little mentioned, garner the most views, beating bees and ladybugs.

To examine the context in which each animal is mentioned, we created a video catalog divided into categories.

Notes on data collection and analysis

Data were collected using the YouTube Data Tools, with the use of the following search queries:

biodiversità urbana

biodiversità città

biodiversità urbano

For each query, the first 200 videos were collected.
From the collection of videos, they were removed:
‍→ Duplicate videos;
→ The videos in languages other than Italian;
→ Videos that did not explicitly mention the urban environment or a specific city;
→ Videos that did not explicitly mention biodiversity in the title or description.

The transcript of each video was generated through the use of the VOSK Models speech recognition tool.

Animal mentions were counted with the help of Videogrep.
The same tool was utlized to generate Supercuts.
‍
The list of animal mentions was then unified following the following criteria:
‍→ Plurals and singulars have been rendered in the singular;
→ Words such as 'etti' and 'ini' remained unchanged, e.g. 'tortoiseshell' and 'sparrow';
→ The feminine and masculine names remained separate;
→ The contracted forms such as 'to the eagle' and 'of the eagle' have been unified into 'eagle';
→ The contracted forms such as 'a bee,' 'of the bee,' and 'the bee' have been unified into 'bee.'
→ Feminine forms such as 'hen' and 'hen' remained separate.