Powerful Pollinators Webinar

The Australian taxonomic community, through Taxonomy Australia, and with the support of the Wheen Bee Foundation is on an ambitious mission to discover and document all remaining Australian bee species in 6 years. This will require a 16-fold increase in the rate at which new bee species are discovered, documented and named and innovative thinking and approaches, applied in a way that retains the scientific rigour and integrity of high-quality taxonomy. Best estimates are that there are currently 1658 accepted, named Australian bee species out of an estimated fauna of 2500 species. If we continue to name and describe bee species at the same rate we have over the past two decades, it will take more than 100 years to fully document Australia’s remaining bee fauna.

The Australian taxonomic community, through Taxonomy Australia, and with the support of the Wheen Bee Foundation is on an ambitious mission to discover and document all remaining Australian bee species in 6 years. This will require a 16-fold increase in the rate at which new bee species are discovered, documented and named and innovative thinking and approaches, applied in a way that retains the scientific rigour and integrity of high-quality taxonomy. Best estimates are that there are currently 1658 accepted, named Australian bee species out of an estimated fauna of 2500 species. If we continue to name and describe bee species at the same rate we have over the past two decades, it will take more than 100 years to fully document Australia’s remaining bee fauna.