After seeing news about a dinosaur footprint find

Not a dinosaur footprint, but of interest in the living world: I’ve found two undescribed species. One was a bee-fly, the other was a cicada. Found out about their lack of documentation when I posted pics to iNaturalist.

Tried for months to find the bee-fly again and send it to the Qld Museum (was asked to do this… it’s a totally unknown species), but no luck. Clearly an uncommon species, as well as an undocumented one!

The cicada was slightly different – it was known about but not yet described. On some entomologist’s to-do list.

Also collected eggs of a moth species whose life cycle from egg to caterpillar to pupa wasn’t known, and gave it to some students at UQ to document. Which they now have.

Finally, posted baby spiders of a species to an arachnologist, at his request. The males of the species had never been seen/documented before.

Have also documented a previously unphotographed species of assassin bug, and taken the second ever photo of a tiny species of dung beetle (and the first photo outside of a book).

So even at a really small scale, lots of interesting things in the backyard if you look closely!