BioBlitz 2010 Photos

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GRAND TALLY – UPDATE

1521 species from the Auckland Domain had been counted by 3pm closing. This is pretty awesome!!!  But the tally is going up as scientists identify some last minute finds from BioBlitz.  We might get to more than 1700 species found during the 24 hours of search.

The Plant Team, led by Ewen Cameron of the Auckland Museum, were clear winners in finding the most species (and they’ve made the most late additions) with an astonishing 848 species of vascular plants!  (Vascular plants are plants that have ‘veins’ to move water and nutrients from roots to leaves and back again)

Watch this space in next few days for more details of what was found.

750 species by 9am

We’re up to 750 species & counting …. numbers should go up rapidly this morning

Identify the weeds in the plant display

Auckland Regional Council & DOC have a great display of live plants … some natives, some weeds.  Can you correctly identify which ones are weeds?

The ARC – DOC table has stuffed pests & some live skinks (which is how it should be!).  Lots of posters & info sheets to take home. Worth a look.

ARC is one of our BioBlitz sponsors … thanks ARC!!

Night videos of possums & rats are cool!

We’re watching some night video footage of possums & rats feeding … pretty cool, pretty funny, but pretty impressive to see how determined & very sobering to see how many of these pests come out to feed at night.  The stoats feeding on a rabbit carcass look very strong & voracious … no wonder they’re such pests.

Very rare mushroom found

This little mushroom had never been found in Auckland before … in fact it had only ever been found twice before in New Zealand, and then from Nelson.  It is a mycorrhizal fungi associated with titree (manuka) roots.  Mycorrhizal fungi help plants absorb nutrients from the soil.

Live creatures attract plenty of attention

Fabulous geckos, skinks, kakariki, banded kokopu (native fish), an eel, spiders, millipedes, a giant (bad tempered) centipede, and other little critters have been getting plenty of attention.  A chance to get up close & personal with biodiversity!

Despite the dry weather, there are plenty of fungi on show.  Plants and lichens are leading the species tallies so far. There’s lots on show in the Atrium (base camp).

Walks & tours proving very popular

All the guided walks (‘field trips’) are proving popular with families.  The after dark torchlight walks down Lovers Walk were especially popular with some great spider-spotting talent among the kids.  We saw some very beautiful green, native  orb web spiders (not commonly seen), a couple of large sheet web spiders, LOTS of tunnel web spiders sitting in their tunnel entrances ready to pounce (their eyes shine in the torch light!), and LOTS of lovely velvety vagrant spiders out hunting …. they’re seriously big spiders as well.

One kid happily pointed out all the ‘lady spiders’… the ones with the big butts that looked like they wouldn’t fit in their tunnel.

Also saw a few weta & a cockroach laying an egg.

BioBlitz tally reaches 601 at 5pm Sat

We’re going well with a total of 600 species counted by 5pm.  That’s ahead of where we wer at the same time during BioBlitz 2005 in the Auckland Domain.

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