There are growing concerns that the humble Christmas beetle are becoming less common.
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00:00 It's a difficult question to answer because normally to say an animal is in decline, we
00:06 would like to have a nice baseline population that we've been monitoring over years and
00:11 years and years.
00:13 We simply don't have that information for Christmas beetles.
00:16 Now almost everyone I talk to has the same story as you, though, that they remember there
00:20 being lots of Christmas beetles when they were kids and there are fewer now.
00:23 And if it was one person saying that, I'd go, "Oh, memories can be iffy.
00:27 We often remember things as bigger or more abundant when we're children."
00:31 But it's such a universal memory that it makes me very, very concerned.
00:36 So I have noticed, say in the kitchen buzzing around, beetles making a bit of a return.
00:42 They look like they've got that shimmery iridescent back.
00:46 Do you think they're making a return?
00:48 I mean, is it hard to actually identify a Christmas beetle from an ordinary beetle?
00:53 Yeah, that's really the problem.
00:55 Once you get your eye in, it's easy to tell them apart.
00:58 But I've noticed this year in particular, we've been getting lots of reports of people
01:01 saying, "Oh, there's heaps of Christmas beetles in my pool or in my house."
01:05 And what people are often actually seeing is another animal called an Argentinian scarab,
01:10 which is a lot smaller than our classic Christmas beetles, doesn't really have the iridescence,
01:15 and has really kind of skinny, spindly back legs, whereas Christmas beetles tend to have
01:19 these beautiful thick back legs, like a beetle that's never skipped leg day.
01:23 Like they're quite chunky.
01:24 And you can usually hear them coming, they're big, so it's like a "bzzzz" sound as they
01:30 come towards us.
01:31 So it's possible that you're seeing Christmas beetles.
01:33 I really hope so.
01:36 But in my experience this year, a lot of the things people say are lots of Christmas beetles
01:40 have been not Christmas beetles.
01:41 Oh, they're the imposter scarabs.
01:45 How outrageous this time of year.
01:48 Tell me, Tanya, why should we care about the Christmas beetle?
01:53 Apart from it being nostalgic, what sort of importance do they hold in the animal kingdom?
01:58 It's funny, I reckon nobody asks koala people a little "why should we care?"
02:04 question.
02:05 It's interesting in that when we're talking about vertebrates like koalas or platypus
02:08 or kangaroos, it's enough for them to be our animals for us to care about them.
02:14 Whereas with insects, we tend not to give them that extra bit of grace.
02:17 We're like, "What do they do for us?"
02:19 I think we should care about Christmas beetles because they're a part of our shared natural
02:23 history.
02:24 They're something that's iconically Australian, just like kangaroos and platypus and koalas.
02:29 Having said that, ecologically, they do have important roles.
02:33 So the adults emerge in huge numbers right around the summer season, when many other
02:38 animals like reptiles, birds and mammals are in the process of rearing up their young.
02:43 Christmas beetles are basically flying balls of protein and fat.
02:46 They're easy to catch, they're quite clumsy and they're full of nutrients.
02:49 So they're an important food source.
02:51 The babies of Christmas beetle, the larvae, live in the soil where they tunnel around,
02:56 mixing the soil, bringing oxygen into the soil and introducing organic matter.
03:00 So they're probably really important for soil health as well.
03:03 And they're also food for other animals.
03:04 Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
03:05 A flying ball of fat and protein as you just conjured up a great image there.
03:12 So given that there hasn't been any sort of longitudinal studies on these, what are you
03:16 doing where you're at?
03:17 If people see one, can they document it in any way?
03:21 Yeah, absolutely.
03:23 We desperately need the public to help us figure out what's going on with our Christmas
03:27 beetle species.
03:28 We don't have the person power to cover the country and there are 36 different types of
03:33 Christmas beetle.
03:34 So we need help.
03:35 We're asking the public, if you see a Christmas beetle or even something you think might be
03:39 a Christmas beetle, please take a picture of it and upload that picture to an app called
03:44 iNaturalist.
03:45 iNaturalist is a global biodiversity repository.
03:48 You can take pictures of any living thing.
03:50 It doesn't have to be Christmas beetles.
03:52 Once you take that picture, the app will try to identify your sighting.
03:56 And it's gotten really good at picking out Christmas beetles from things like Argentinian
04:00 scarabs.
04:01 Once you upload, it automatically will become part of our project if it's a Christmas beetle.
04:05 So you don't even need to tag our group or anything.
04:08 Yeah, although you can follow our group if you'd like to get updates.
04:10 OK, so it's all in the posterior, isn't it?
04:12 I believe that's what identifies the Christmas beetle, a hairy bottom.
04:16 Yeah, we'd love to get pictures of the top, the bottom and the rear end of the beetle.
04:21 And that's because a lot of species that look alike have really different rear ends.
04:25 Some have beautiful rainbow bumps, some have sort of furry rear ends.
04:29 Others have this beautiful green iridescent rear end.
04:32 So I spend a lot of time staring at beetle rears.
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