Christmas beetles (Anoplognathus spp) are a group of iconic Australian insects strongly associated with summer vacation and the Christmas season. Millions of these large, colourful beetles used to emerge in December and January in urban and wild areas and it was very common to find Christmas beetles around well-lit front porches of homes across the country. The number of Christmas beetles that emerge each year appears to have been declining over the last few decades with lots of media headlines asking “Where have all the Christmas beetles gone?”. There are, however, currently no formal monitoring projects. In collaboration with Invertebrates Australia, we are collecting data to answer key questions such as:

1. Have Christmas beetles really declined? If so, which species/areas are in the most trouble?

2. Which factors influence Christmas beetle populations?

Check out the Christmas beetle Count project on iNaturalist: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/christmas-beetle-count

For more on the project see here