היומן של thebeachcomber

Many Australians, especially those on the east coast, would be familiar with the plant genus Bidens, especially the very common and widespread non-native species B. pilosa. Referred to as cobblers pegs, pitch-forks, and shepherd's needles among a number of names, many bushwalkers (especially in more disturbed areas) will have brushed against one of these at some point and had their clothes covered in the annoying achenes. However, B. pilosa isn't the only species present in Australia. Also, Bidens in Australia has seen some taxonomic confusion between similar species.

@bean_ar provided a great overview of the situation in a 2020 edition of the Australian Systematic Botany Society Newsletter (see pp. 44-45 in https://asbs.org.au/newsletter/pdf/20-sep-184.pdf). As a summary of Tony's article, plus information from the various state herbaria, the species currently recognised as occurring in Australia are:

Bidens pilosa. Non-native. Common and widespread across the country, and recorded as occurring in all states and territories (including Lord Howe Is., Norfolk Is., and Christmas Is.) except Tasmania. Many (most?) Australian herbaria/sources recognise two varieties of B. pilosa, var. pilosa and var. minor, with the former meant to be lacking any ligules/ray florets ('petals') and the latter having very small, white, often ephemeral ray florets. Tony notes in the above article that "My field observations in several locations have clearly shown that the non-ligulate form (var. pilosa) and the ligulate form (var. minor) occur mixed within the same population, even side by side. For this reason, I suggest that varieties should not be recognised in B. pilosa." Interestingly, Plants of the World Online also takes this view and does not accept the varieties, however, both are currently accepted and used on iNat as deviations.

Bidens biternata. Native. As noted by Tony, this species was previously overlooked in Australia, being misidentified as either B. pilosa (both pinnate leaves) or B. subalternans + B. bipinnata (all yellow ligules). It occurs across the Kimberley in WA (although Florabase is yet to take up this change), the Top End of the NT, and in QLD, down to within ~10 km of the NSW border based on specimens Tony has looked at.

Bidens tripartita. Non-native. Relatively uncommon in Victoria and NSW.

Bidens aurea. Non-native. Seemingly rare, recorded only from Sydney thus far.

Bidens bipinnata/Bidens subalternans. Non-native. I've included these two species together here because this is a taxonomically contentious pairing. Most sources treat these two entities as separate (but similar) species. However, Tony believes that the two should be collapsed into a single species (see the linked article above for explanation). Florabase has collapsed the two, and so too has QLD, however, NSW and FloraNT still treat them separately. For completeness, here is how the two are separated by the PlantNET key:

Pappus awns erect; peduncles and margins of involucral bracts glabrous or with scattered small septate hairs; leaflet lobes usually linear to lanceolate ---> Bidens subalternans

Pappus awns spreading; peduncles and margins of involucral bracts conspicuously ciliate with spreading septate hairs; leaflet lobes rhombic to broad-lanceolate ---> Bidens bipinnata

Bidens alba. Non-native. This is the species that prompted me to make this journal post. Previously, this species was included within B. pilosa as 'var. albus', although it was often just treated/identified as B. pilosa. Recently, however, it was elevated to full species status (for anyone interested, see discussion here: https://www.inaturalist.org/flags/362565). Unfortunately, most Australian herbaria have not recognised/taken up this change yet. The variety in Australia is var. radiata.

Florabase (WA) - not recognised. There are only 6 observations of Bidens on iNat for WA, none of them alba, so I don't know whether alba does occur in WA.

SA Flora (SA) - not recognised. A brief skim of iNat records immediately shows at least one observation of B. alba, so it clearly does occur here.

FloraNT (NT) - not recognised. There's only a single Bidens observation on iNat for the NT, so I don't know whether alba does occur in WA.

VicFlora (Vic) - not recognised. A brief skim of iNat records immediately shows multiple observations of B. alba, so it clearly does occur here. The main image for B. pilosa on the VicFlora page for that species also actually depicts B. alba.

PlantNET (NSW) - not recognised. Clearly does occur in NSW, with many iNat records. There are also AVH collection records in NSW (all in northern NSW, but it clearly extends all the way down based on my records + those of others).

Queensland Herbarium - recognised, and does occur.

There is also a native lookalike genus, Glossocardia, that is often mistaken for Bidens.

The main reason I made this post is that not a lot of people realise that B. alba is a separate species from B. pilosa, there are misidentifications of alba as pilosa on iNat in Australia, and a few years ago when B. alba was recognised on iNat, all observations of B. pilosa in Australia were actually pushed back to genus, so there are now a lot of easily recognised records sitting at genus because people weren't aware of the change. I'm going to go through the Australian Bidens records and add IDs where I can to clean things up.

For now, I'm going to recognise B. subalternans as a legitimate species in NSW, and ID based on the key. If it does get collapsed into B. bipinnata in future, it will be easy to swap these records into bipinnata.

Most of my IDs will be pilosa + alba, the two common species. Here are the ways to separate them:

QLD Keybase key (Tony's):

Ligules 10-16 mm long; leaves/leaflets with 17-42 pairs of teeth; teeth 0.5-1.3 mm long on large leaflets; leaves 1-3 (rarely 5)-foliolate --> alba

Ligules 2-8 mm long or absent; leaflets with 8-20 pairs of teeth; teeth 1.1-4 mm long on large leaflets; leaves 3-7-foliolate --> pilosa (and biternata, but that has yellow ligules, and alba always has white)

Weakley 2020 and Ballard 1986 (US sources):

Ray florets 5-8, the ligule 3-18 mm long; cypselas 0-2-awned, the awns 1-2 mm long; outer phyllaries (8-) 12 (-16) --> alba

Ray florets absent (or if a few present, the ligule is only 2-3 mm long); cypselas 3 (-5)-awned, the awns 1-3 mm long; outer phyllaries 7-10 --> pilosa

CONABIO (Mexico):

Up to 8 ligules that are notably longer than wide. Relatively short external (green) bracts --> alba

Absent or reduced ligules. At least some fruits with three awns instead of two --> pilosa

So there are discrepancies + overlaps between the keys re the differences in ligule length. What we can take home regarding pilosa and alba (ignoring the other species for now):

If flowers are present, and there are no white ligules, only yellow disk florets, it is B. pilosa. A good example is here: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/155421971

If ligules are present, and they're white (if they're yellow, it's not pilosa or alba), and they're very small, it is B. pilosa. A good example is here: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/120001760

If ligules are present, and they're white, and they're large, it is B. alba. A good example is here: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/124345528

Now of course the tricky part comes when it's difficult to gauge ligule length from photos, or if plants are non-flowering. This is where ideally you would use the vegetative characters from Tony's key, although unfortunately the two species can overlap on all three leaf characters for some values/measurements.

I'm going to go through the Australian observations, ID all the easy ones first, then go back and look more carefully at the 'edge' cases.

Tagging some people who might be interested:
@bean_ar @nicklambert @gregtasney @aavankampen @scottwgavins @alx4mtmel @russellcumming @wcornwell @cesdamess @jackiemiles @insiderelic @gtaseski @onetapir @reiner @pcopping_ecp @martinbennett

feel free to tag others that I've missed

Lately, I've been curating/IDing a lot of old observations, both moving easy stuff to RG, and correcting mistakes that have been sitting around for a while. Thus far, however, I've only been adding my IDs to Needs ID obs, or RG obs that are incorrect. However, I'm going to be adding confirming IDs to a lot of RG obs from here on in for the groups that I'm curating. Aside from molluscs, I almost never do this, as I typically don't see much point in it. But one of the big tasks I've been trying to address recently is adding IDs to the tens of thousands of observations that lost them after the recent account deletion of a major Australian identifier. So for the taxa that I am doing a full review of, I think it probably is worth it to add IDs as an extra layer of protection in the event of future deleted IDs.

So apologies in advance for the notifications I may be generating for people :)

UPDATED ON 13 FEBRUARY 2023

Agaristinae is a charismatic subfamily of moths within the family Noctuidae (although sometimes treated as its own family, Agaristidae). Many species are brightly coloured or well-patterned, are highly active during the day, and are often mistaken for butterflies

According to the Australian Faunal Directory, there are currently 44 described species of Agaristinae in Australia across 21 genera.
This number should actually be 46 (and the genera 23), as there are records of the poorly known species Sarbanissa diana from Christmas Island despite it not being listed by the AFD, and there are now also records of Pseudcraspedia punctata despite it not being listed by the AFD (perhaps under a different name?). I can only assume there are also some undescribed entities (e.g., on BOLD), but for now I assume this covers all the known entities.

So how complete is Agaristinae in Australia on iNaturalist?

As of writing (13th February 2023), there are 4,730 Australian observations across 41/46 species (and within all 23 genera).

Agarista (1 species)
Agarista agricola

Agaristodes (1 species)
Agaristodes feisthamelii

Apina (1 species)
Apina callisto

Argyrolepidia (3 species)
Argyrolepidia aequalis
Argyrolepidia fractus
Argyrolepidia thoracophora

Burgena (1 species)
Burgena varia

Coenotoca (2 species)
Coenotoca subaspersa
Coenotoca unimacula

Comocrus (1 species)
Comocrus behri

Cremnophora (1 species)
Cremnophora angasii

Cruria (6 species)
Cruria donowani
Cruria epicharita --> zero observations
Cruria kochii
Cruria latifascia --> zero observations
Cruria synopla
Cruria tropica

Eutrichopidia (1 species)
Eutrichopidia latinus

Hecatesia (3 species)
Hecatesia exultans
Hecatesia fenestrata
Hecatesia thyridion

Idalima (5 species)
Idalima aethrias --> zero observations
Idalima affinis
Idalima leonora
Idalima metasticta
Idalima tasso

Ipanica (1 species)
Ipanica cornigera

Leucogonia (2 species)
Leucogonia cosmopis
Leucogonia ekeikei

Mimeusemia (3 species)
Mimeusemia centralis
Mimeusemia econia
Mimeusemia simplex --> zero observations

Periopta (2 species)
Periopta ardescens
Periopta diversa

Periscepta (2 species)
Periscepta butleri
Periscepta polysticta

Phalaenoides (2 species)
Phalaenoides glycinae
Phalaenoides tristifica

Platagarista (1 species)
Platagarista macleayi

Pseudcraspedia (1 species)
Pseudcraspedia punctata

Radinocera (2 species)
Radinocera maculosus
Radinocera vagata

Sarbanissa (1 species)
Sarbanissa diana

Zalissa (3 species)
Zalissa catocalina
Zalissa pratti
Zalissa stichograpta --> zero observations

So where should we be looking for the 5 unobserved species according to ALA records?

Cruria epicharita

Cruria latifascia

Idalima aethrias

Mimeusemia simplex

Zalissa stichograpta

Most of the 5 unobserved species have distributions confined to the Wet Tropics, from ~Cairns northwards.

Perhaps the most interesting species is Zalissa stichograpta, which is represented by a single record on the ALA, the type specimen collected in 1930 from the Bunya Mountains in SE Queensland.

@imcmaster @vicfazio3 @nicklambert @dustaway @domf @cher63 @kenharris @wellsii @dianneclarke @daviaker @hdavid @tas56 @reiner @larney @peregrine80 @ecosse28 @dhobern @davidtng @ianmcmillan @mattcampbellaus @kdbishop69 @dhfischer @sarahcobbaus @johnlenagan @jb2602 @urliup-wildlife-sanctuary @matthew_connors @paul2george @koolah @wambledyn @carolynstewart @eremophila @possumpete @dj_maple @d_kurek @gregtasney @bushbandit @kallies @leoncrang @ethanbeaver @ellurasanctuary @gumnut @twan3253 @benkurek__ @cesdamess @elainemcdonald

I have definitely missed out on tagging people here, so please tag anyone that I've forgotten

On iNat, there are over 3000 Australian observations of Xerochrysum across 11 species. The majority of these are X. viscosum (>1500) and X. bracteatum (>800). However, Collins et al. (https://www.publish.csiro.au/SB/SB21014) recently published a comprehensive review of the genus, and there are some big changes. A number of new species have been described, some old species collapsed into others, and, perhaps most significantly, the circumscription of X. bracteatum has significantly narrowed. Xerochrysum bracteatum sensu strictu is now considered to only occur in "south-eastern New South Wales and far-eastern Victoria in the Sydney Basin, South East Corner, and South East Coastal Plain bioregions" (not accounting for garden escapees elsewhere given its commonness in horticulture), greatly reducing its previous distribution. This means there are now a lot of misidentified records on iNat. I'm intending to go through all records and make corrections where I can.

There are now 24 described species:
X. milliganii
X. collierianum
X. alpinum
X. palustre
X. andrewiae
X. subundulatum
X. banksii
X. viscosum
X. boreale
X. neoanglicum
X. macsweeneyorum
X. frutescens
X. copelandii
X. berarngutta
X. murapan
X. strictum
X. gudang
X. macranthum
X. papillosum
X. hispidum
X. interiore
X. bicolor
X. wilsonii
X. bracteatum

There are a further 4 yet to be formally described phrase name species:
X. sp. Chinchilla
X. sp. Blackfellows Gap
X. sp. North Stradbroke Island (L. Durrington 675) Qld Herbarium
X. sp. Tin Can Bay

2 entities are no longer valid:
X. halmaturorum --> now synonymised under X. bicolor
X. sp. Lofty Ranges --> now synonymised under X. bicolor

Tagging top observers and IDers of Xerochrysum for reference + to give heads up about impending notifications
@george_seagull @iancastle @michaelcincotta @yatesy @oneanttofew @onetapir @jackiemiles @quinkin @jimbobo @gtaseski @ninakerr01 @chrisclarke25 @mftasp @craig-r @w_martin @baronsamedi @kjellknable @lee488 @basaltnpepa @gregtasney @reiner @kim-tarpey @andrewborg @lizardview @garry34 @arthur_chapman @lmata @martinbennett @mononymous @adrian2370 @ray_turnbull @richie_south @corchard @linger @nicklambert @possumpete

After almost 380 hours of surveying, I finally wrapped up my survey of Wategora Reserve along Duck River in western Sydney. All up, 1926 species observed in an area of just 25 ha.

All observations at: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/wategora-reserve-cooks-river-clay-plain-scrub-forest

Summary of survey, and link to download final 427 page report + fully annotated/illustrated checklist, at: https://tmesaglio.github.io/duck-river-biodiversity-survey/

Huge thanks to everyone who helped ID my observations

On iNaturalist, moths are a big deal in Australia. Indeed, at the end of last month, we surpassed 400,000 Australian moth observations on iNaturalist, so there's no better time to take a dive into this amazing group of insects.

As of early in the morning on 4 May 2022, 426,206 observations of moths in Australia have been uploaded to iNaturalist. These observations cover 5,479 species; although there are of course many undescribed (and undiscovered) species, the Australian Faunal Directory currently lists 10,432 Australian moth species, meaning we've already managed to document 52.5% of all described Australian moths. This number continues to grow at an impressive pace; in November 2020 it was 42.9%, and in December 2021 it was 49%, with almost 400 new species documented in the 5 months since. Moths make up almost 40% of all Australian insect observations on iNaturalist, and indeed constitute over 12% of all Australian observations across all taxa!

Although these statistics are certainly the result of an amazing group effort, with moth observations contributed by 10,807 users and identified by 2,767, one user stands head and shoulders above the rest, a titan of Australian moths on iNaturalist: @vicfazio3.

Without Vic, the Australian iNaturalist moth community would never have reached its current lofty heights; noone has done more for Australian moths on the platform. While his 137,261 identifications of Australian moths is incredible in its own right, this statistic becomes more amazing when you realise the second most prolific identifier has made 25,142 identifications, more than 100,000 below Vic. These identifications have been made for almost 5,000 users, representing a tremendous teaching effort and transfer of knowledge. Whether it's micromoths just a few millimetres in length, majestic emperor moths, or the thousands of obscure brown ones in between, Vic's knowledge is unparalleled. Indeed, the nature of moths truly highlights the breadth and depth of Vic's expertise. In taxa such as birds or butterflies, it is typically easier to gain the knowledge to identify many species. In a hugely diverse group like moths, where thousands of species are fairly uncharismatic and look quite similar to each other, it's much tougher to build the expertise to be able to confidently identify taxa from more than a handful of families or tribes, but Vic has managed to do exactly that.

But Vic is not just the go-to identifier for Australian moths; he's also a tremendously prolific observer. He currently sits second on the all-time iNaturalist observers list of Australian moths, with 26,384 observations across 1,290 species. For any regular iNaturalist users, Vic's observations are instantly recognisable: high quality photographs showing his trademark large mesh moth netting, most of them from around his home in the Manning Valley. Many of the moths photographed and uploaded by Vic represent the only photographs of those species on iNaturalist.

Vic has also written 27 journal posts on iNaturalist covering a broad range of invaluable topics, including taxonomic disputes and discrepancies, ecology, misidentifications, and BOLD. All of them are well worth reading.

Some of Vic's most valuable contributions are less tangible with respect to his personal stats. One of these is his tremendous generosity with his time and his endless patience. I have lost track of the number of times that I have tagged Vic to look at my moth observations, so I can only imagine the number of times he gets tagged by every other user as well. And for each and every tag, Vic always responds, either with an identification or a thoughtful comment pointing me in the right direction. The second is the great number of taxonomic discrepancies and pervasive misidentifications that he's resolved. On countless occasions, Vic has uncovered a species which has been misidentified en masse across iNaturalist, determined the correct identification, and then passed on this knowledge to other users. These corrections are crucial for improving the quality of data on iNaturalist (and by extension, the ALA and GBIF, into which these data flow). The third is the huge impact Vic's identifications (and observations) have had on iNaturalist's Computer Vision. A few years ago, uploading an Australian moth and trying to use the CV to suggest a species was a dead end unless you had observed something very common (think Scopula rubraria) or highly distinct (think Cosmodes elegans). Now, there are ~700 Australian moth species that can be offered as suggestions by the CV!

Across all taxa, Vic sits 2nd on the list of all time identifiers for Australia, 6th for all time observers in Australia, and indeed has the 56th most identifications out of any iNaturalist user anywhere in the world (out of almost 250,000), having made an incredible 203,098 identifications. Vic is one of the most important, prolific and recognisable contributors to iNaturalist, having been part of the platform for more than eight years. Here's to Vic.

As a heads up for anyone that either runs an existing project (or intends to make a project) with Australia as a place filter, there are a number of external territories that are not included in 'Australia' as a place on iNat, and must instead be added manually as additional places. These are:

Norfolk Island
Christmas Island
Cocos Islands
Heard Island and McDonald Islands

Another useful addition is the waters around Australia, i.e., the Australia Exclusive Economic Zone

Similarly, if you have a project with NSW set as the place filter, you must also manually add Jervis Bay Territory as an extra place, otherwise observations from Jervis Bay won't be included

Here are the iNat codes for all these places:

Australia - 6744
Norfolk - 7333
Christmas - 7616
Cocos - 10287
Heard/McDonald - 10293
Waters - 118147
Jervis Bay - 96781

In the invertebrate world, there are many groups of cryptic species for which identification is difficult, or even impossible, from photographs due to their similar morphology and colouration. In some cases, a single identification gets applied indiscriminately to multiple different (and sometimes even unrelated) species; for example, the name Amenia imperialis is very commonly used for not only true A. imperialis, but all the other Amenia species, and a number of lookalikes (e.g., Rutilia) in an entirely different family. Not only are many online records (on iNaturalist and elsewhere) putatively of A. imperialis not that species, in most cases the photographs do not allow an identification to species anyway.

However, there are many instances for which it is possible to readily differentiate between several similar options. On iNaturalist, there are a number of invertebrates for which two common, morphologically similar species are often confused for each other, but are relatively easy to identify once you know what to look for. In many of these cases, the computer vision will offer both species as suggestions, creating further uncertainty. In this guide, I present ten pairs of commonly observed, and commonly confused, Australian arthropods, and highlight how to differentiate them. A number of these pairs have distributional differences between the two species that can help with identifications in some cases, but I will focus only on morphology here. Note that for all ten pairs there are far more differences between the two species than I have noted, but I have highlighted the most prominent differences/those that are easiest to see.

1 . Trichonephila edulis and Trichonephila plumipes (females)

Above, left: @jacksonnugent
Above, right: @kymelen

Above, left: @bushrevival
Above, right: @pardalotebellion

2 . Nyctemera baulus and Nyctemera amicus

Above, left: @cher63
Above, right: @vicfazio3

3 . Coelophora inaequalis (merged spot morph) and Micraspis frenata

Above, top left: @thebeachcomber
Above, middle left: @imcmaster
Above, bottom left: @jantly
Above, right: @reiner

4 . Papilio aegeus (female) and Papilio anactus

Above, top left: @halobaena
Above, bottom left: @thebeachcomber
Above, top right: @richie_south

5 . Nyssus coloripes and Nyssus albopunctatus

Above, left: @tjeales
Above, right: @debtaylor142

6 . Graphium choredon and Graphium eurypylus

Above, top left: @debjoliver
Above, bottom left: @scottytar
Above, top right: @dddwebbb
Above, bottom right: @dan_bishop

7 . Ptomaphila lacrymosa and Ptomaphila perlata

Above, top left: @mattcampbellaus
Above, bottom left: @vicfazio3
Above, right: @ianmcmillan

8 . Hemicordulia tau and Hemicordulia australasiae

Above, top left: @happywonderer
Above, bottom left: @ecologibel
Above, top right: @reiner
Above, bottom right: @benjaminlancer

9 . Delias harpalyce and Delias nigrina

Above, left: @karenmcgregor
Above, right: @nmain

10 . Mictyris longicarpus and Mictyris platycheles

Above, left: @thebeachcomber
Above, right: @w_martin

For anyone interested, @alpine_flora_of_australia and I are running three big bioblitzes over the next 3 weekends:

25-27 February = Blue Mountains (Blackheath base camp)
4-6 March = Washpool + Gibraltar Range NPs, NSW North Coast
11-13 March = Murramarang NP, NSW South Coast

There'll be stacks of experts leading walks and surveys.

Registration available at https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/big-bushfire-bioblitz-registration-206905017477

Also feel free to join any of the projects at https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/big-bushfire-bioblitz-umbrella.

Schedule for this weekend's blitz at the Blue Mountains available at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-9s6M8-yfIn0ycMWMieg9SiVEPkIYEC_F9QJZ4wE7k4/edit?usp=sharing

Would love to meet some of you in person :)

Unsure how many of you have seen it, but there's a new Xmas beetle project operating at the moment: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/christmas-beetle-count

It's a collection, so obviously nothing extra needed on your end from the admin point of views, but if you can would be great to try boost your obs over this summer :) All IDs welcome of course too

Note that it's not just Anoplognathus being collected, but also Calloodes, Cyclocephala, Repsimus and Xylonichus.

Tagging all the beetle usuals that haven't joined the project yet (I know I've missed heaps of people, so apologies in advance...)

@reiner @twan3253 @johneichler @vicfazio3 @nicklambert @rhytiphora @ellurasanctuary @imcmaster @johnlenagan @d_kurek @matthew_connors @cesdamess @dhobern @kenharris @cher63 @martinlagerwey @dianneclarke @ianmcmillan @dustaway @tjeales