Phil Warburton didn’t recognise the unusual looking wasp that flittered into his camera viewfinder while he was out photographing insects in the autumn of 2022, but he snapped away, taking hundreds of shots of the little creature.
The keen photographer from Batemans Bay on the New South Wales south coast didn’t know at the time that he was the first person to ever photograph the Euodynerus aspra alive.
Mr Warburton photographed the wasp at South Pacific Heathland Reserve, Ulladulla. (Supplied: Phil Warburton)
It would take more than two years for Mr Warburton to confirm that fact.
He consulted experts in New York and Italy and compared his evidence with a pin specimen in the Museum of Venice.
“It’s a great feeling. You’ve added a new species to the photographic record,” Mr Warburton said.
He has since captured images of 15 more species including wasps, bees and flies that had never been photographed alive before.
Mr Warburton said instances of photographers taking the first ever images of live insects was becoming surprisingly commonplace because of a revolution taking place in entomology.
A white-spotted red hoverfly photographed at the Eurobodalla Regional Botanic Gardens. (Supplied: Phil Warburton)
Magnified citizen science
The rise of citizen science applications allow for anyone to photograph flora and fauna and upload the information into an online database.
The apps, paired with the rapid rise in the quality and availability of macro-photography equipment in the past five years, have changed the game for insect identification and data, Mr Warburton said.
“Anybody can go out and take a picture of an insect and when they take it home and have a look at it, they might discover something that’s never been photographed before,” he said.
“There’s a whole new world of discovery that’s available because we have these great cameras that allow you to see things that just weren’t possible a generation ago.”
Mr Warburton shooting photographs of insects at Maloney’s Beach. (ABC South East NSW: James Tugwell)
More than 1.5 million people have submitted more than 56 million insect observations to the popular not-for-profit citizen science platform iNaturalist since 2008, with the majority since 2020.
“It’s great to be participating in something that is contributing to science. It’s great to be a part of something that is a bit of a revolution,” Mr Warburton said.
He said the trick to photographing insects was a very large amount of patience and a very large camera memory card.
About five of every 500 photos he takes turn out to be usable.
The bee fly Eristalopsis uniformis photographed in the Northern Territory. (Supplied: Phil Warburton)
“It’s just luck. Most of the time I just wait and see what comes to me,” he said.
“There’s a heap more out there to keep looking for.”
Fact checking
National University of Singapore entomologist John Ascher said if there were no photographs of a species in the iNaturalist database, it was guaranteed to be the first image of the species alive.
As the top animal identifier on the site, Dr Ascher is responsible for confirming a photograph is accurate and has verified more than 1.5 million photographs.
John Ascher has verified 1.5 million photographs on citizen science app iNaturalist. (Supplied: John Ascher)
He prioritises identifying species in parts of the world where not much data is generated, such as South Asia and the Middle East.
“You can get data from times and places and countries and parks where it is very difficult to get traditional specimen data,” he said.
“The iNaturalist maps are filling in a huge number of gaps in places that have never had specimen collecting.”
Dr Ascher said iNaturalist allowed for citizen scientists to connect with experts on the other side of the world in a way that was never possible before, providing a more comprehensive data set.
iNaturalist photos include additional information compared to a stick specimen, such as their prey or the flowers insects are visiting, and more effectively track the movement of a species.
Dr Ascher says citizen science apps are valuable for amassing otherwise unattainable data. (Supplied: John Ascher)
Dr Ascher has used online recordings to trace the movement of bumblebees across North America into areas and climates they have never been known to live in before.
However, he said there were some weaknesses to iNaturalist compared to museum stick specimens where data was “more triaged”.
“iNaturalist is in a very initial stage. You can see what’s there, warts and all,” he said.
Top: Australian weevil wasp. Bottom: Acarozumia wasp and Nomia bee. (Supplied: Phil Warburton)
Yet, Dr Ascher said if a global expert could team up with an in-country expert and local citizen scientists, the quality of data available was limitless.
“We’ve barely scratched the surface,” he said.
“We have made a lot of progress, and I wouldn’t want to put limits on where this could go.”
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