kwalker

Hi Ken again -- Your moth is definitely a Noctuidae and I think it belongs to either of these two genera: Epicyrtica sp. or Thalatha sp.

Cheers

Ken

Hi AliceGreenup -- I have just seen your entries on Project Noah and thought I would contact you. BTW -- I live in Melbourne Victoria.

I am on a mission to capture Australian Biodiversity for Australian Scientists to use to better understand our unique Australian biota.

I see so many wonderful images with associated GPS and date records. Records with GPS and Date are valuable scientific records which unfortunately I fear are being lost to science. I say "lost" because the information is not uploaded to the Australian National Biodiversity aggregator called "Atlas of Living Australia" (www.ala.org.au).

ALA currently aggregates data from all Australian Museums and Herbaria and it is used extensively by Australian and overseas scientists - particular to model changes in our Australian environment.

Here is an example: You can ask ALA to display the distribution of a Koala and then overlay that with a distribution of its eucalyptus foodplant. Then using these distribution points, you can model a temperature change of 0.5 or 1 or 5C over the next 50 to 100 years and watch what happens to the distribution of the Koala and its foodplant. However, models are only as good as the original dataset and this is why I say that your local records should be made available to the general scientific community -- we call you a "Citizen Scientists" and we believe that most of the future biodiversity data will be generated by people like you -- you see something and your record it and it gets uploaded to the national dataset.

ALA commissioned me two years ago to build a website dedicated to Citizen Science - called BowerBird - which was recently on 10 May 2013. In nutshell, here is how BowerBird works:

- There are a series of "Projects" that are created by people.
- Anyone can join these Projects and form a community of like-minded interests sharing their finds
- Someone uploads an image(s) of something and add a location (GPS) and date to their images
- Anyone in the Project community can then help to identify it, or comment on it, or tell their own story about that species, or Vote for that image, or describe that species etc.
- If the images have been submitted under the Creative Commons License 3.0, then the images and GPS/Date data will be automatically uploaded to ALA and add a new dot on a map for that species.

BowerBird provides a social framework - just like a Field Naturalist Club - for members and their data is added to the National Biodiversity dataset.

I would be very keen to attract you to join BowerBird and to contribute across a wide range of animal and Plant Projects. You take such a variety of great photos.

Here is the URL to this Project showing almost 230 fungal observations: http://www.bowerbird.org.au/projects/4/s...

Please do keep your Project Noah account but I do hope that you will consider sharing some of your wonderful sightings and knowledge with Australian Projects and Australian Scientists.

BowerBird has a number of expert moth specialist who are very happy to identify images uplaoded to BowerBird. Here is a URL to the BowerBird Moth Project: http://www.bowerbird.org.au/projects/196... We've love you to join this Project.

If you are interested, the BowerBird website is: www.bowerbird.org.au.

My name is Ken Walker (kwalker@museum.vic.gov.au ) and I a senior scientist at Museum Victoria and one of the 3 developed of BowerBird.

if you contact me, I will send you a BowerBird User Guide and offer to assist you where ever possible.

Thanks for your time and efforts.

Cheers,

Ken

Hi Christiane -- Last year, I used to follow your contributions and identify some of your uploads. I have just returned to Project Noah to find you and to offer you something new in Citizen Science that I have helped to develop. BTW -- I live in Melbourne Victoria.

Last weekend, I photographed this fungus fly Tapeigaster lutipennis and uploaded it to my new Australian Citizen Science website: http://www.bowerbird.org.au/observations...

I am on a mission to capture Australian Biodiversity for Australian Scientists to use to better understand our unique Australian biota.

I see so many wonderful images with associated GPS and date records. Records with GPS and Date are valuable scientific records which unfortunately I fear are being lost to science. I say "lost" because the information is not uploaded to the Australian National Biodiversity aggregator called "Atlas of Living Australia" (www.ala.org.au).

ALA currently aggregates data from all Australian Museums and Herbaria and it is used extensively by Australian and overseas scientists - particular to model changes in our Australian environment.

Here is an example: You can ask ALA to display the distribution of a Koala and then overlay that with a distribution of its eucalyptus foodplant. Then using these distribution points, you can model a temperature change of 0.5 or 1 or 5C over the next 50 to 100 years and watch what happens to the distribution of the Koala and its foodplant. However, models are only as good as the original dataset and this is why I say that your local records should be made available to the general scientific community -- we call you a "Citizen Scientists" and we believe that most of the future biodiversity data will be generated by people like you -- you see something and your record it and it gets uploaded to the national dataset.

ALA commissioned me two years ago to build a website dedicated to Citizen Science - called BowerBird - which was recently on 10 May 2013. In nutshell, here is how BowerBird works:

- There are a series of "Projects" that are created by people.
- Anyone can join these Projects and form a community of like-minded interests sharing their finds
- Someone uploads an image(s) of something and add a location (GPS) and date to their images
- Anyone in the Project community can then help to identify it, or comment on it, or tell their own story about that species, or Vote for that image, or describe that species etc.
- If the images have been submitted under the Creative Commons License 3.0, then the images and GPS/Date data will be automatically uploaded to ALA and add a new dot on a map for that species.

BowerBird provides a social framework - just like a Field Naturalist Club - for members and their data is added to the National Biodiversity dataset.

I would be very keen to attract you to join BowerBird and to contribute across a wide range of animal and Plant Projects. You take such a variety of great photos.

Here is the URL to this Project showing almost 230 fungal observations: http://www.bowerbird.org.au/projects/4/s...

Please do keep your Project Noah account but I do hope that you will consider sharing some of your fungal knowledge with Australian Projects.

I am not sure if you have heard about the Victorian Herbarium website FungiMap. It seeks contributions to map different species of fungi around Australia. FungiMap is now using BowerBird as it data collection point. We've love you to join this Project.

If you are interested, the BowerBird website is: www.bowerbird.org.au.

My name is Ken Walker (kwalker@museum.vic.gov.au ) and I a senior scientist at Museum Victoria and one of the 3 developed of BowerBird.

if you contact me, I will send you a BowerBird User Guide and offer to assist you where ever possible.

Thanks for your time and efforts.

Cheers,

Ken

Hi Leuba -- I have just stumbled across your wonderful photo of a mushroom fly and your amazing fungal photos. I found them fascinating. BTW -- I live in Melbourne Australia.

Last weekend, I too photographed Tapeigaster lutipennis: http://www.bowerbird.org.au/observations...

I am on a mission to capture Australian Biodiversity for Australian Scientists to use to better understand our unique Australian biota.

I see so many wonderful images with associated GPS and date records. Records with GPS and Date are valuable scientific records which unfortunately I fear are being lost to science. I say "lost" because the information is not uploaded to the Australian National Biodiversity aggregator called "Atlas of Living Australia" (www.ala.org.au).

ALA currently aggregates data from all Australian Museums and Herbaria and it is used extensively by Australian and overseas scientists - particular to model changes in our Australian environment.

Here is an example: You can ask ALA to display the distribution of a Koala and then overlay that with a distribution of its eucalyptus foodplant. Then using these distribution points, you can model a temperature change of 0.5 or 1 or 5C over the next 50 to 100 years and watch what happens to the distribution of the Koala and its foodplant. However, models are only as good as the original dataset and this is why I say that your local records should be made available to the general scientific community -- we call you a "Citizen Scientists" and we believe that most of the future biodiversity data will be generated by people like you -- you see something and your record it and it gets uploaded to the national dataset.

ALA commissioned me two years ago to build a website dedicated to Citizen Science - called BowerBird - which was recently on 10 May 2013. In nutshell, here is how BowerBird works:

- There are a series of "Projects" that are created by people.
- Anyone can join these Projects and form a community of like-minded interests sharing their finds
- Someone uploads an image(s) of something and add a location (GPS) and date to their images
- Anyone in the Project community can then help to identify it, or comment on it, or tell their own story about that species, or Vote for that image, or describe that species etc.
- If the images have been submitted under the Creative Commons License 3.0, then the images and GPS/Date data will be automatically uploaded to ALA and add a new dot on a map for that species.

BowerBird provides a social framework - just like a Field Naturalist Club - for members and their data is added to the National Biodiversity dataset.

I would be very keen to attract you to join BowerBird and to contribute to the "World of Fungi" Project.

Here is the URL to this Project showing almost 230 fungal observations: http://www.bowerbird.org.au/projects/4/s...

Please do keep your Project Noah account but I do hope that you will consider sharing some of your fungal knowledge with Australian Projects.

I am not sure if you have heard about the Victorian Herbarium website FungiMap. It seeks contributions to map different species of fungi around Australia. FungiMap is now using BowerBird as it data collection point. We've love you to join this Project.


if you are interested, the BowerBird website is: www.bowerbird.org.au.

My name is Ken Walker (kwalker@museum.vic.gov.au ) and I am a senior scientists at Museum Victoria and one of the 3 developed of BowerBird.

If you contact me, I will send you a BowerBird User Guide and offer to assist you where ever possible.

Thanks for your time and efforts.

Cheers,

Ken

Thanks Mark for your fast reply. Have a look at the ALA map for this species and you will see that your record is the first for Victoria! ALA needs your record (:->!

Hi Argy Bee. I just spotted your recent addition of a Fungus fly and thought I would contact you. I work at Museum Victoria in Melbourne and I have just released a new Australian Citizen Science website called BowerBird. What caught my eye was that someone to the west of Melbourne recently uploaded images of another species of the fungus fly Tapiegaster cinctus on a giant fungus. The BowerBird URL to this record is: http://www.bowerbird.org.au/observations... Thought you may want to have a look. If you are interested in learning more about BowerBird then contact me and I will send you some information. BowerBird is now an Australian equivalent to the wonderful Project Noah -- but it does a few things differently. Importantly, all of the data on BowerBird gets uploaded to the Australian National Biodiversity aggregator called Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) and is added to that dataset and publicly displayed. This dataset is then uploaded to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). This gives great residual value to contributions like your. My contact details as : kwalker@museum.vic.gov.au Cheers Ken

Hi Christine. This is a Braconidae wasp belonging to the genus Apanteles. Cheers Ken

Actually, what's happening here is "freaky" stuff for Biosecurity - thanks for using that term correctly. Until the advent of and use of social websites to report possible invasive species, such report primarily was done by scientists and ONLY to government institutions (EG. DPI). Overseas websites such as Project Noah are now hosting Australian invasive reports - how do Australian scientists monitor or check such reports? Fortunately, you contacted me directly through PaDIL. An alternative maybe to offer an Australian socially networked, science image based website. I have been funded by the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) to build such a website. To me, this is the socialization of science that "scares" many in workers in Biosecurity. The new Australian social is called BowerBird and it will be live by June 2012. It will offer many of the cool features available in Project Noah and other similar sites (eg iSpot, iNaturalist, Mushroom Observer etc) but several new features and new ways to interact with the website and between members of the website.

Hope that all sounds exciting. We would love to have many Australian Biosecurity citizen science "eyes" enjoying sharing images, forums etc but also being part of surveillance for invasive species.

Cheers. ken

Hi Shanna -- Great pictures and thanks for contacting me through the PaDIL website. This nymph definitely belongs to the family Lophopidae which is represented in Australian by only 3 known species: Lophops saccharacida (an introduction from PNG) and 2 native species of the genus Magia stuarti and Magia subocellata. It is always difficult to associate nymphs with adults when the nymphs look so different! However, I have worked with some of the Zophiuma species from palm plantations in West New Britain and I do not believe your nymph belongs to this genus. Rather, I believe it to be the native species Magia subocellata which is known to occur in your area.

Thanks for notifying someone about your concerns. You can make such notifications on the PaDIL website or contact your local DPI (Department of Primary Industries) office.

Best wishes,

Ken Walker

Hi Argybee

Thanks for posting this spotting and thanks for contacting me through PaDIL. I just love the way the socialisation of science is finally beginning to work. The best result is to have hundreds of "quarantine eyes" out there looking for something "different". so thanks

And, thank goodness it is not the clover root weevil! I believe this is the exotic but now established in Australian white-fringed weevil: Naupactus leucoloma Boheman (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Entiminae) - Note: Still in the same subfamily Entiminae as is Sitona.

Here is a link to the PaDIL species page for the white-fringed weevil:

http://www.padil.gov.au/pests-and-diseas...

One of the nice features of PaDIL is the ability to create user defined comparative image tables. Put simply, I have made a comparative image table that compares many images showing many different diagnostics views of these two species. Here is the link to that table and note the differences in the colour patters between the two species - especially the white stripe along the lateral margins of the elytra (ie. hard wing covers):

http://www.padil.gov.au/pests-and-diseas...

Thanks again for posting the image, raising your concern and contacting PaDIL. Cheers Ken