Remote, rugged Rungulla

You've been busy. Thank you to everyone who continues to add observations to the Backyard Species Discovery project. Last month we were excited to pass an amazing 200,000 observations!

The Bush Blitz team has been busy too, preparing for another species discovery expedition. This time we've taken a team to spectacular and remote Rungulla National Park, 500 km southwest of Cairns. Below is an image of the expedition base camp. The ranger shed has provided welcome shelter from recent heavy rain.

Rungulla (pronounced Roong-ala) National Park is on Ewamian (pronounced Oor-a-min) Country and is managed by the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service. We are working with Ewamian cultural representatives, park rangers and scientists to record the plants and animals that call Rungulla home, and hopefully discover a few new species.

The team was welcomed on Country by Ewamian representatives, who are working alongside our scientists, sharing their knowledge of Country with us. This is Hilton (JR) Richards, one of the Traditional Custodians sharing their knowledge with the team.

The scientists are specialist taxonomists from the Queensland Museum, Queensland Herbarium, Australian Tropical Herbarium, University of NSW and Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN). The rugged nature of the park means a helicopter is needed to transport taxonomists to sampling sites. After being out in the field all day, they work hard each evening in the expedition field lab to analyse what they’ve collected.

Due to the park's remote location, few biological surveys have been undertaken before. In the first week, Chris Burwell from Queensland Museum recorded 14 dragonfly and damselfly species that are new records for the park. All of the expedition records will be entered into institutional databases. From there they feed into the Atlas of Living Australia, where they will join your 'Research Grade' iNaturalist observations.

Painted Grasshawk dragonfly (Neurothemis stigmatizans) © Chris Burwell

Posted on May 11, 2022 02:26 AM by bushblitz