Christmas Beetle Count's Journal

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,
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