There was a buzz around the King Island Town Hall in Currie last Sunday when young and old and in between came to meet with the Bush Blitz scientists to show them their unusual finds or to find out what the scientists had found while surveying the island – including a hairy snail.
Bush Blitz is Australia’s largest nature discovery program. It is a unique multi-million dollar partnership between the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, Parks Australia, BHP and Earthwatch Australia to document plants and animals across Australia.
The scientists mentioned the King Island weather – changeable every five minutes, but said it did not deter them, and they were excited with their finds. The botanists found a small herbaceous daisy-like species (Lagenophora).
This little daisy will be sent to Paris to replace the plant collected 100 years ago which among other Australian plants was inadvertently destroyed when on loan.
“It has been a wonderful trip, our spider man Honorary Research Associate with the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, John Douglas is fairly confident that we have possibly found a new trap door spider species up at Yellow Rock and possibly a new jumping spider and weevil,” Bush Blitz Manager Jo Harding said.
“There are possibly more than five new species we’ve identified. Zoe Blochse from Uni NSW has identified a few new Sundew True bugs and Dr Cathy Byrne Senior Curator (Zoology) from Tasmania Museum and Art has set light traps each night and she also thinks she has found a couple of new species of moths and we think there’s a new species of hairy snail – and yes, they are hairy.
“The guys from the Tasmanian Herbarium are also excited as there is little known about the lichens. The students at Big Lake were so engaged.
“We were able to live stream back into classrooms around Australia, mainly in NSW and Victoria and that involved about 400 students who all know about King Island.
“It’s really good for students to see scientists in the field and not in a lab wearing a white coat. Students get to find out about the opportunities in science and jobs that can take them around the world,” she said.
The botantists are keen to return to King Island. There is a long process that needs to be followed before the scientists’ finds can be called a new species and named and this includes notifying scientists worldwide.
“If anyone is interested in continuing the search, I recommend the inaturalist app.
“It has AI imbedded so it can identify what a citizen scientist might have found, but it also links automatically into the Atlas of Living Australia which scientists also use and it has both images and audio to help with identifications,” Ms Harding said.