Latty said while population data lags for Christmas beetles,anecdotally,there are fewer. That makes her nervous.
That’s why people are being asked tosnap pictures of Christmas Beetles when they see them,so scientists can track where the bugs are.
The Christmas Beetle Count ran for the first time last year capturing 9000 of the insects,including some that had not been seen in 20 years. The count is run by Invertebrates Australia,of which Latty is a co-founder.
There are 36 species of Christmas Beetles found only in Australia,21 of which are in NSW. They are most common along the east coast and are found over most of the continent.
But Latty suspects there are many undiscovered species and behaviours of these colourful bugs crawling around.
“This is a recurring problem in insect conservation. We’ve probably only named 20 per cent of insects in Australia. The rest are essentially not known,” Latty said. “Of the 20 per cent we know about the ecology of the tiniest fraction of those.