Christmas Beetle Count's Journal

Happy New Year !!!

2024 is already off to a great start as we just passed our 10,000th sighting! Fantastic job everyone!
I wish everyone a wonderful, beetle-full 2024:)
Cheers
Tanya

Hello Everyone,
We’re conducting a research study asking people to share their memories of Christmas beetles so that we can better understand people’s perceptions about Christmas beetle populations. We’d like to hear from as many people as possible, even if you have never seen a Christmas Beetle. It’s very short and will only take a few minutes. Your answers will remain anonymous.

The Survey link is here:
https://utsau.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0PnnydoS0bGcM2W

Thank you for your help and happy holidays!

Cheers
Tanya

We just hit two more milestones: 8000 Christmas Beetle sightings and 4000 project members!!! Well done everyone!!

We have developed a few videos with information about Christmas beetles. In particular, check out our video on Christmas beetle identification (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZReC_wKtO8 ) and Christmas beetle look-a-likes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECEHmBibyAY&t=11s). You can also get new videos by subscribing to "Invertebrates Australia" on Youtube.

We’ve noticed an increase this year in Argentinian lawn scarabs (Cyclocephala signaticollis ) which are frequently being mis-identified as Christmas beetles. The videos include some helpful hints for telling Christmas beetles apart from other types of beetle. Our team is hard at work correcting identifications online so please don’t worry if you’re sighting has its identification changed. It’s a great way to learn about the diversity of beetles in your area!

From the entire Christmas beetle Count Team, thank you all so much for your help!
Cheers
Tanya

Today we hit an incredible milestone: 7000 Christmas beetle sightings! Thank you all for your help!!

The beetles have appeared early this year so keep a lookout from now until March.

Your sightings are already helping us understand our beloved Christmas beetles. Last year we recorded sightings of species that had not formally been sighted in decades including:
Anoplognathus multiseriatus - last reported in 1970s
Anoplognathus rhinastus - last reported in 1999
Anoplognathus vietor - previously reported from a single male specimen in 1986.

We have lots of great content planned for this season, so stay tuned for updates!
Happy beetle hunting!
-The Christmas Beetle Count Team

Hi everyone,
Well, the 2022/2023 Christmas beetle season has come to an end. Thank you so much for your help and support! Here are some quick project highlights:

We recorded sightings of 4 ‘missing beetles’- these are insects that had not been formally sighted in several decades. They are:
Anoplognathus vietor- previously known from a single male specimen in 1986. This one is extra special as there is only 1 preserved specimen…so it is incredibly exciting to have a photo of a live one!
Anoplognathus nebulosus -last reported 1999
Anoplognathus rhinastus – last reported 1999
Anoplognathus multiseriatus – last reported in the 1970’s

We have collected 6,592 total sightings (3,000+ of which are from this year alone!). We now have observations of 35 Christmas beetle species.

What's next?

-We will spend the next few months crunching numbers and trying to get a clearer picture about the state of our Christmas beetle populations. We hope the data will help us answer some important questions about the ecology and conservation needs of Christmas beetles. We'll let you know when we have preliminary results!

• It's hard to believe, but Christmas beetle season 2023/2024 will be here before we know it. We aim to make next season even bigger and we are working hard to prepare exciting new initiatives such as better educational resources, webinars and workshops. Stay tuned!

On behalf of the Christmas beetle team, thank you so much for your support. See you in October 2023!

Cheers
Tanya

Love bugs? Did you know you can now become an official member of Invertebrates Australia? Join today and help us in our mission to support the science and conservation of Australian invertebrates, and keep programs like the Christmas Beetle Count going strong!

As a member you’ll:

• get invited to exclusive member events and ‘meet the scientist’ events;
• be the first to know about what we’re up to; and
• directly contribute to the conservation of our critical invertebrates.

Learn more and sign up today at https://invertebratesaustralia.org/membership

You can also join our quarterly enews, Snail Mail, at https://invertebratesaustralia.org/enewsletter

Hi everyone,
Just a quick note of clarification as I have received several emails from folks asking how to upload sightings to the Christmas beetle project. We have configured the project so that EVERY Christmas beetle sighting will be AUTOMATICALLY included in our project. So all you need to do is upload to iNaturalist - the software will do the rest!

There are a few reasons you might not see your sighting on our project page:

1. Your sighting is not a Christmas beetle. There are quite a few other scarabs that are frequently misidentified as Christmas beetles. These will not be included in our dataset. But don't despair- your sighting is still very valuable as it contributes to our knowledge of beetle biodiversity.
2. Your sighting hasn't been confirmed as a Christmas beetle yet. Confirmation requires other people to 'agree' that your sighting is a Christmas beetle. We have a very active community of volunteers, but it takes us some time to look through all the sightings. We appreciate your patience!

Thanks for your participation in this project! It's making a real difference!!

Cheers
Tanya

Hi Everyone,

We have another exciting new find! Anoplognathus vietor was described from a single male specimen and there are no records of it after the original description in the late 1980's. The sighting by @bpjohnstone is one of only three sightings ever recorded!!! https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/147007911.

A special shout out to @hauke_koch for identifying this one (confirmed by the awesome Dr Chris Reid at the Australian museum).

On a personal note, I am absolutely delighted by how many amazing sightings we have turned up this year. You have all done a brilliant job of recording and identifying Christmas beetles. The enthusiasm people have had for this project is amazing and I'm confident we'll be able to make positive steps toward conserving our beautiful Christmas beetles.

Cheers
Tanya

Hi Everyone,

One of the great things about iNaturalist is its ability to identify insects using a sophisticated algorithm,. Unfortunately, iNaturalist sometimes makes mistakes, especially when identifying smaller animals (like insects) to the species level. We've recently been going through records of one of the more common Christmas beetle speceis, A . viridiaeneus, which used to occur in very high numbers around Sydney. At first, it looked like there were a reasonable number of A . viridiaeneus sightings being reported on iNat. But after consulting with our Christmas beetle taxonomy expert from the Australian Museum (the amazing Dr Chris Reid) we realised that many sightings may have been misidentified. After reassessment the number of confirmed A . viridiaeneus dropped from 70+ to around 19. Unfortunately, the low number of A . viridiaeneus sightings supports the sad conclusion that this species has likely declined.

This experience highlights the power and the pitfalls of using iNaturalist. On the one hand, it does a reasonably good job of identifying Christmas beetles to genus. In my experience, many beetles get misidentified as 'Christmas beetles' and it would take tremendous effort to remove these from our dataset. iNat's algorithm does this automatically and the amount of time and effort it saves us shouldn't be underestimated. On the other hand, iNat often misidentifies species which can lead to false conclusions if we are not careful (*EDIT* Please see @thebeachcomber's comment below. It seems iNaturalist isn't to blame for incorrect IDs, rather it may be users manually entering the wrong identifications. Making ID mistakes is part of the learning process, so I'm happy to learn that its humans, not the algorithm, making errors. We will perhaps try to put together some training materials to help simplify identifications. Keep up the awesome work everyone!!)

Our team will continue to work through sightings to ensure correct identifications. If we've changed an ID on one of your sightings please do not be disheartened- your sighting is still very important to us.
Identifying insects is difficult and takes practice. iNaturalist helps us to learn together:)

Special thanks to @hauke_koch and @thebeachcomber for their hard work checking beetle IDs.

Cheers,
Tanya

Hi Everyone,

First, happy holidays!!

If you would like to learn more about how to identify Christmas beetle species, here are some great resources to get you started.

The Australian museum has a fantastic, easy-to-use app, that can help you figure out which species you are observing. It also includes an anatomical atlas which will help you learn the unfortunately complex language that entomologists use to name insect body parts. It also provides information about where each species is found, as well as info about similar-looking species. It is available for both android and iPhone.

For iOS: https://apps.apple.com/au/app/xmas-beetle-id-guide/id1180442876
For android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=air.XmasBeetleIDGuide&hl=en_AU&gl=US

If you already have some experience identifying insects (or want to do a deep dive), check out this online Lucid key: https://keys.lucidcentral.org/keys/v3/aus_museum/christmas_beetles/key/Christmas%20Beetles%20of%20NSW/Media/Html/key.htm

Lucid keys allow you to systematically select characteristics of your specimen, until you've whittled it down to one or a few candidate species. The key assumes a working knowledge of insect anatomy which may make it difficult for beginners. It does have a glossary of terms that can help you learn the correct anatomical terms.

Happy Beetle-ID'ing!

Cheers
Tanya