PEET - Austral Staphylinidae

Australia | 2004

Australia is a very important area for our project. This island continent, with its unique nature, hosts a rich, diverse and poorly known fauna of Staphylinidae, which now includes about 1630 described species. All our PEET target groups are represented in Australia. This continent is a relatively compact landmass, with a geologically old land surface. The Great Dividing Range provides some topographic diversity on the eastern coast (its highest elevation is in the southeast, Mt. Kosciusko, 2228 m), but otherwise the general character of the Australian landscape is one of slight relief. In contrast to this rather uniform relief, the climate and biotopes of Australia are very diverse: they include tropical rainforests in the north-east, various arid landscapes in the center and west; numerous types of eucalypt forests (including these wetter and drier variants in both the east and southwest), as well as cool temperate along the southeastern seaboard, grading to alpine at the higher elevations. Without exaggeration, the plant and animal worlds of Australia are charismatic, although most of the kangaroos are warmer and fuzzier than these! There is no way to summarize Australian natural history in brief, nor is there any way to grasp the entire Australian fauna of Staphylinidae during the six week long trip we had. Unlike several previous field trips to the southeastern parts of Australia by Margaret Thayer and Al Newton, this trip was focused on two very different areas: the southwest “Mediterranean” corner of the continent, and the wet tropics of Queensland. Also our trip was scheduled so that we took part in the XXII International Congress of Entomology in Brisbane and spent several days in a few insect collections of Queensland and Western Australia. Fortunately, megadiverse Australia is a country with a rich entomological tradition, which includes numerous entomologists with an active Entomological Society, institutions (CSIRO Entomology and others) and funding agencies like ABRS supporting entomological research.

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