Have you ever seen a Willie Wag-tail bird prancing in your backyard? Or what about a Wedge-tailed Eagle soaring majestically in the sky? Or even sighted a Christmas Beetle at your local park? It's great to see these snippets of nature but how about sharing your finds which will help to improve our understanding of Australia's Biodiversity. How can you help? That's easy - you don't even need to know the name of what you have seen. Take a photo of an animal, plant or fungi - that's called "scientific evidence". Then make a note of where and when you took the photo - that's called "spatial / temporal data". The last step is to share your photo and "data" information on a citizen science website. We suggest you use iNaturalist Australia.

There are lots of experts who can identify your photo - but these experts cannot be everywhere around Australia so you become the experts' "eyes on the ground". No record is too trivial to share. The "where and when" information allows scientists to add a new dot to a species distribution map which may confirm a species presence to an area or it may be the first time the species has ever been recorded there. That's why we need the photo - so anyone can go back to question the record and see the record's evidence! Scientists need help from the public to better understand what occurs in Australia and where it lives - that's biodiversity. If we don't know what is where then how can we conserve it?

Give us a hand - take a photo, note down some data and share your finds.

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