Bioblitz photos showcase biodiversity of Southern Hemisphere

Close-up photograph of a colourful small spider on a piece of vegetation

Tasmanian peacock spider (Maratus tasmanicus), Australia. Credit: © Donna Hall, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC).

One of science’s most engaging activities – the bioblitz – is transforming the way we understand our world.

A bioblitz is a period of intense biological surveying to try to record all the living species within a designated area. It’s been reported that the term “BioBlitz” was first coined by U.S. National Park Service naturalist Susan Rudy while assisting with the first BioBlitz held at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens, Washington, D.C.

Today the annual Great Southern BioBlitz begins.

In 2023, the event is aiming for even wider participation, with more than 250 areas and more than 20 nations. The aim? To collect vital biodiversity data for use in scientific research and to inform policy.

Last year people across the Southern Hemisphere collected almost 213,000 observations of species which call it home. The immense effort occurred over just 4 days during 2022’s Great Southern Bioblitz event.

Now, a year later, we look back at some of the stunning photos collected by citizen scientists last year.

The event runs from 12:01am Friday 24 November until 11:59pm Monday 27 November in your time zone. This is the time to document as many (wild) species of flora, fauna, fungi, and aquatic life as possible in your part of the Southern Hemisphere.

This year, participants are encouraged to find something new with the #GSB23 challenges.

#FRIDAY5: On Friday the 24th kick off the GSB by taking five observations.
#MOTHNIGHT: On Saturday 25th hang up a white sheet outside and shine a light on it. Leave it up for an hour or more and record what you see!
#SHAKEATREE: On Sunday 26th spread a white sheet or tablecloth under a tree and give it a shake. What falls out?
#LOOKANDLISTEN: Grab a magnifying glass to look a little closer and close your eyes to listen a bit harder. Challenge yourself to upload an audio observation and a macro observation.

Participants will then have a further 14 days to upload and identify all of their observations made during this period to the iNaturalist.org website or app. For other citizen science activities throughout the year, see what The Australian Citizen Science Association has for you.

Photograph of a brown mammal and its young — *Cape Rock Hyraxes (Procavia capensis ssp. capensis), South Africa. Credit Jenny, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)*

Photograph of a snake on a branch with a lizard in its mouth — *Common Boomslang (Dispholidus typus ssp. Typus), South Africa. Credit: © Carina Lochner, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC).*

Photo of a bird with yellow feathers on its tail — *New Holland Honeyeater (Phylidonyris novaehollandiae), Australia. Credit Ozbeach Andy, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC).*

Photograph of a marine organism on sand — *Sea swallow (Glaucus atlanticus), South Africa. Credit: © Eva van Belle, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC).*

Photograph of a small, fluffy, yellow spider — *Velvet lynx spider (Oxyopes flavipalpis), Zimbabwe. Credit: © Dan Lee, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC).*

Originally published by Cosmos as Bioblitz photos showcase amazing biodiversity of the Southern Hemisphere

Imma Perfetto

Imma Perfetto is a science journalist at Cosmos. She has a Bachelor of Science with Honours in Science Communication from the University of Adelaide.

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