Congratulations to the winners of the 2021 WAISS Photography Competition.

Scientific Category

First Prize: Dragonfly metamorphosis by Karen Cullen

Second Prize: Clouded coachman family by Margaret Owen

Third Prize: Native Bee by Kerry Stuart

Artistic Category

First Prize: Life and Death by Norm Pinsky

Second Prize: Katydid by Terry Houston

Third Prize: Cicada by Kerry Stuart

Phone Category

First Prize: Rifle bug by Daniel Heald

Second Prize: Hoverflies by Lachie Perry

Third Prize: Lynx spider by Lachie Perry

Due to COVID the February meeting will be held via zoom – Wed Feb 10 at 7:30

Speaker is Joshua Kestel (Curtin University)

Topic: eDNA in pollination studies.

If you wish to join email secretary.waiss@gmail.com or treasurer.waiss@gmail.com

ALRE Call for grant applications 2020 –

We are pleased to announce grants of up to $4500 from the Perpetual Foundation – Australian Lepidoptera Research Endowment (ALRE) for the financial year July 2020 to 2021, and are inviting applications.

Eligibility
Any lepidopterist, amateur or professional, working on the Australian fauna, is eligible to apply for any of the activities considered for support listed on the ALRE website:

http://www.australianlepidopteraendowment.com/

To be eligible, grants can only be handled by organisations that hold Australian Taxation Office Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR1) endorsement (covered by Item 1 of the table in section 30-15 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997). Further documentation may be requested during the selection process to confirm an organisation’s eligibility.

More information can be found at https://www.australianlepidopteraendowment.com/grants

Application
The application form can be found on the ALRE website and should be submitted by 1 April 2020 by email to Marianne.Horak@csiro.au

Selection Process
The applications will be assessed by the Scientific Advisory Committee and a recommendation with applications to be funded from the ALRE will be made to the trustee in May 2020. Successful applicants will be advised by the trustee by 30 June 2020 and the grant will be disbursed to the eligible beneficiary.

For queries please contact Marianne Horak (Marianne.Horak@csiro.au or Tel. 02-6246 4259)

WAISS members and friends have been invited to participate in DPIRD’s annual Biosecurity Blitz, running between 19 Oct and 16 Nov

It’s a fun opportunity to help discover as many interesting or damaging pests (animals, insects, diseases, weeds and aquatic pests) as possible across Western Australia over a month. Your reporting efforts will provide important data and help protect Western Australia’s agri-food industries and the natural environment from harmful exotic pests.

To participate, sign up and use one of the Department’s reporting tools (MyPestGuide, PestFax).

Reports can be viewed online, and an online newsletter is available by subscription. More details here.

Authored by M.F. Braby, D.C. Franklin, D.E Bisa, M.R Williams, A.A.E Williams, C.L. Bishop, R.A.M. Coppen.

Pale Swallowtail, Graphium euryplus, photo by A.S. Kono, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

New from (amongst others) WAISS Members Dr Matthew and Andrew Williams, The Atlas of Butterflies and Diurnal Moths in the Monsoon Tropics of Northern Australia is a beautiful and thoroughly researched new book documenting the distribution, phenology and host plants of the butterflies in this vast region of northern Australia. This region is significant for biodiversity conservation because it supports high levels of species richness and endemism – range-restricted taxa that are not represented elsewhere in Australia. However, current knowledge is based almost entirely on vertebrates and there have been no previous detailed studies examining patterns of biodiversity of invertebrates. Moreover, the region is under increasing pressure for development and exploitation of its natural wealth by the expanding agricultural and mining sectors. Hence, there is an urgent need for a holistic approach to identify its biological assets and inform policy and conservation management agencies. This new book addresses this lack of knowledge for a flagship group of invertebrates, the butterflies and day-flying moths.

Available now in print or free electronic form from ANU Press.

The annual WAISS photo competition is already off to a flying start! Entries are flooding in from near and far! The judges are awestruck by artistic beauty, scientific interest, and incredible things that can be done with mobile phones! They are tugging their beards and muttering at each other! Word on the street is that even 16 prizes might not be enough! 🙂

Members of WAISS are most welcome to enter, if you’re not currently a member, membership details and forms can be found at https://waiss.org/join/ , prizes and rules are outlined below, and if you require further information, feel free to contact the President, Secretary, or Treasurer.

WAISS Photography Competition 2018-19 Prizes and Rules :

The total prize pool will be $350, with an additional honorable mention and free year’s membership in each category.

Prizes in adult categories will be $50, $30, and $20 for first, second, and third. Prizes in the junior category will be $25, $15, and $10.

Categories –
Composition/Art
Subject/Scientific Interest
Phone
Junior

Entry is open to WAISS members.

Photographs must be the work of the member submitting them.

Photographs must be of Western Australian insects.

Photographs should be submitted at the largest file size and resolution possible.

Entrants for phone and junior categories should point out their eligibility.

Entrants for the subject category should point out the scientific significance of the subject.

Senior entries will automatically be considered for multiple categories if appropriate, but each photo may only win one prize.

Criteria for judgement may include artistic merit, scientific notability, best portrait, best action shot, etc.

Composite photos are permitted.

A maximum of 3 photographs per entrant will be accepted.

Please submit photos in .jpg format via email to waisspresident@gmail.com by 31 January.

Please include details of where each photo was taken, species if known, and label each photo/file with your name.