Christmas Beetle Count
HOW TO UPLOAD YOUR CHRISTMAS BEETLE PHOTOS
Step 1: Download the iNaturalist app
Step 2: Upload your photos
See our video below on how to use iNaturalist for the Christmas Beetle Count
Where are all the
Christmas Beetles?
IMAGE: AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM
Let’s do this.
If you have the means available, your donation to Invertebrates Australia will go toward paying for people’s time to manage projects, communicate with the media, analyse data and report findings and then communicate the results back to you. Other ways you can help are to share our project on your social media accounts and tell your friends. If you have a platform from which you’d like to share information about our project please contact us!
Watch this talk from Tanya Latty explaining how to get involved in the Christmas Beetle Count.
Where are all the Christmas Beetles?
Christmas beetles are an iconic feature of the Australian summer and many Australians have fond memories of finding these big beautiful beetles in large numbers. In the last ten years or so there have been many anecdotal accounts of people seeing fewer Christmas beetles and media articles asking, “Where are all the Christmas Beetles?” We want to know the answer to this question too! That’s why we’ve teamed up with the University of Sydney and Dr Chris Reid from the Australian Museum as a Scientific Advisor and set up this project - we’d love your help to figure out what’s going on.
We have started a Community Science Project to gather observations of Christmas Beetles. Our project aims to:
Understand the current distribution of Christmas Beetles through observations
Compare the current distribution to historic records to determine if there is a decline
If there is evidence of decline, identify its potential causes by seeing what has changed in areas of decline
Let’s figure it out together, add your photos to our iNaturalist Project!
Gathering data on the whereabouts of Christmas Beetles is the first and most critical part of our study. We need as many people as possible to tell us when they spot a Christmas Beetle! Contribute your photos of Christmas Beetles to our iNaturalist Christmas Beetles Project … and beware of imposters! Download the iNaturalist App from the App Store or Google Play.
Identifying Christmas Beetles
Not sure about identifying your beetle? Don’t worry! When you upload photos of your sighting to our iNaturalist Project the iNaturalist community will chime in and figure it out, that’s one of the reasons it’s a cool platform.
If you’d like to try and identify your beetle, the Australian Museum’s ‘Xmas Beetle ID Guide’ App is the best most accessible resource, and it’s free. Download it from the App Store or Google Play. There is about 35 species of Christmas Beetles across Australia, but it is easy to identify them with the right photos!
The best way is to take four photos:
one of the back
one of the belly
one from the front, of the face, and
one from the back, of their little rear end!
See below for the 'washerwoman' images from the Australian Museum's 'Xmas Beetle ID Guide' App.
Get technical
If you know your beetle anatomy, or are keen to learn, there is an online ‘Lucid Key’ written by Australian Museum for the NSW species! Check it out: Key to the Christmas Beetles of NSW
Christmas Beetles (Anoplognathus spp.)
images: Australian Museum and Mike Burleigh
Images of the ‘washerwoman’ from the Australian Museum's 'Xmas Beetle ID Guide' App showing the four views needed for identification. Download the app from the App Store or Google Play.
A Christmas Beetle Carol
And for some fun, check out this amazing song from Amelie Ecology about our Christmas Beetle! A uniquely Australian song for the summer.