Posts by Andrea Wild

Aussie beetles rolling poo balls, delighting scientists

All dung beetles are scarabs. Some dung beetles roll poo. Not all poo-rolling beetles are scarabs. What’s the answer to this (we)evil riddle?

An eggs-traordinary move for our egg collection

What’s it like to pack and move 12 million scientific specimens, including a fragile bird egg collection? We're about to find out.

Why we love taxonomists

Each year, our taxonomists describe and name around 200 new species, from weevils and weedfish to weird plants.

Our research collections are going digital

Millions of specimens held in our National Research Collections Australia are going digital for science.

Moths resting on a blue bollard beside an ATM.

Moths swarm on Queensland bank

The current population explosion and mass migration of moths and butterflies in Queensland is due to recent rain.

Bushfire impact on Australian plants

Many Australian plants have strategies to cope with fire and some species even take advantage of bushfires to germinate.

Close up photo of a fly's head showing large eyes and spine-like hairs. Next to a picture of the Night King from Game of Thrones

A Game of Flies: naming 230 new species

During past year we’ve put scientific names on around 230 new species, including a bee fly that resembles the Night King.

Tray holding open boxes of eighteen clutches of bird eggs each containg containing a cuckoo's egg and two or three host bird eggs.

Eggshell forensics solve the riddles of ancient birds

We have achieved the delicate and intricate task of teasing DNA sequences from the shells of non-ratite birds, opening up egg collections in museums around the world as a resource for DNA-based research.

10 things you need to know about collections

First compiled by explorers and natural historians, now ecologists and other researchers, collections are catalogues for the phenomenal diversity of life on Earth, which—in a world of receding ecosystems—are only growing more important as records and reservoirs of understanding.

Species richness: our EOFY stock-take reveals over 200 newly discovered species

In the last year we've discovered and named over 200 different species including fossil insects, a catshark from PNG, a macadamia-blighting weevil, and a daisy known from just 20 individuals.

Environomics: Protecting our environment from the genome upward

Environomics (short for environmental genomics) means we can deliver environmental information fast, accurately and on a very large scale.

Hand holding the front part a purplish coloured elongated fish showing large mouth with needle-like teeth.

One fish, two fish, what is this new fish?

Understanding which fish species occur where, and identifying new fish species, is the starting point for managing our marine biodiversity.