King Island, Tasmania 2023: Bush Blitz expedition report summarises the initial scientific findings of a Bush Blitz expedition to King Island, a remote Tasmanian island located in Bass Strait, halfway between Victoria and Tasmania. Between 23 and 30 October 2023, the expedition team recorded at least 1,301 species, including 44 species that may be completely new to western science (4 moths, a cave-cricket, 37 spiders, a harvestman and a lichen). A threatened snail and 2 threatened plants were also recorded, along with 45 introduced plants and 25 introduced or pest animal species.
Bush Blitz expedition report [PDF – 1.3 MB]
The expedition report includes data from reports provided by the scientists who took part in the expedition. The full scientific reports are available here for those who require more detailed information:
Freshwater aquatic invertebrates [PDF – 353 KB]
Gastropoda (terrestrial) [PDF – 253 KB]
Heteroptera (true bugs) [PDF – 216 KB]
Insects excluding Lepidoptera [PDF – 408 KB]
Lepidoptera [PDF – 1.4 MB]
Marine macroalgae [PDF – 9.8 MB]
Spiders [PDF – 359 KB]
Vascular plants, bryophytes and lichens [PDF – 708 KB]
September 2026 update:
Simon Grove (Curator of Invertebrates, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery) has finished identifying and registering insects collected in malaise traps that were left at survey sites until the end of the season. King Island residents helped maintain the traps and returned samples for analysis. Remarkably, 586 insect species were identified from these samples, including 370 previously unrecorded from King Island. These results significantly improve our understanding of the island’s insect diversity and help fill important gaps in knowledge about the distribution of many species.
