Atlas of Living Australia

Atlas of Living Australia Australia's national biodiversity data infrastructure hosted by CSIRO. The Atlas was initiated by a group of 14 (now 17) organisations—our partners.
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The intent was to create a national database of all of Australia’s flora and fauna that could be accessed through a single, easy to use web site. Information on the site would be used to:

* improve our understanding of Australian biodiversity
* assist researchers to build a more detailed picture of Australia’s biodiversity
* assist environmental managers and policy makers develop more effective

means of managing and sustaining Australia’s biodiversity. Funding for the Atlas was provided by the Australian Government under the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) and the Super Science Initiative (SSI), part of the Education Investment Fund. The Atlas partners have provided considerable in-kind contributions.

It never rains, it roars! 🦖The Biodiversity Heritage Library Australia recently digitised Collections Registers rescued ...
11/06/2026

It never rains, it roars! 🦖

The Biodiversity Heritage Library Australia recently digitised Collections Registers rescued from the flooded Merri-bek Museums Victoria collection storage facility.

There are around 1500 pages relating to a large micropalaeontology collection from Victoria and New Zealand. It’s important data used to cross-reference physical objects in the collection. 🪨

Museums Victoria recently rediscovered in their collection a bone fragment found in 1907 of the extinct giant echidna Megalibgwilia owenii. 🔨

It confirmed for the first time that this giant echidna had been in Victoria, as well as South Australia and New South Wales.

Tasmanian plant data is blossoming! 💐We now have almost 20,000 records from the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery bo...
11/06/2026

Tasmanian plant data is blossoming! 💐

We now have almost 20,000 records from the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery botany collection, and there’s more to come! 🪏

Under our Australian Biodiversity Data Mobilisation Program 2025, we’re helping digitise and mobilise this collection as an important historical record of Tasmania's floral diversity. 🌱

Weekend reading alert! 📢Our latest newsletter is online! 🌱Catch up on our news and events, research highlights, and our ...
06/06/2026

Weekend reading alert! 📢

Our latest newsletter is online! 🌱

Catch up on our news and events, research highlights, and our systems and services update.

And find out more about our taxonomy and names matching, the value of data infrastructure, and what makes good R code. 🦎

From image to insight 📸Congratulations to WildObs on launching! 🚀WildObs combines AI powered species recognition with hu...
04/06/2026

From image to insight 📸

Congratulations to WildObs on launching! 🚀

WildObs combines AI powered species recognition with human verification to process, standardise and share wildlife camera trap data at scale and at speed.

This transforms fragmented datasets into a high-quality collection of wildlife camera-trap images that have been carefully labelled with species identifications and supporting metadata.

We host the Tagged Image Repository to support ecological research and the development of automated species recognition models.

WildObs is a partnership between the The University of Queensland, QCIF Digital Research, and our colleagues the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC), and the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN).

Big bird dataset drops 🐦 We are very excited to announce that we have been working with BirdLife Australia to refresh th...
31/05/2026

Big bird dataset drops 🐦

We are very excited to announce that we have been working with BirdLife Australia to refresh the Birdata dataset in the ALA!

Birdata is the BirdLife Australia online Bird Monitoring Platform containing nationwide expert and citizen science surveys, as well as targeted threatened species surveys critical to BirdLife's conservation programs.

The data now available via the ALA is classified to subspecies level, meaning that the records will better match to their threat statuses under state, territory and Commonwealth listings, including the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC).

The ALA's Indigenous Ecological Knowledge program are proud to have been working with Bernadette Duncan, Kamilaroi woman...
28/05/2026

The ALA's Indigenous Ecological Knowledge program are proud to have been working with Bernadette Duncan, Kamilaroi woman and linguist, who leads the Gadji Gadji Garden Project, since 2018.

The Gadji Gadji Garden project brings together Kamilaroi women to regrow and share their language and knowledge of plants and animals in a safe space, through making food and teas from local plants.

Bernadette says "Drinking the tea makes people become more relaxed and engaged in discussion about the plants, it bring back memories of the plants and animals."

Recently Bernadette led an Indigenous plant names and tea tasting’ workshop at the Botanical Gardens in Canberra (ANBG). It was a chance to experience the tea and learn a little about the plants used.

This project, along with Noongar and South East Arnhem Land projects collect, protect and share Indigenous language and knowledge for plants and animals.

The language and knowledge shared through the Gadji Gadji Garden project is shared with the ALA and published online via the Kamilaroi Plant and Animal online Encyclopedia.


Happy International Day for Biodiversity! 🎉We celebrate our biological diversity every day by providing trusted biodiver...
22/05/2026

Happy International Day for Biodiversity! 🎉

We celebrate our biological diversity every day by providing trusted biodiversity data services to support world-class research and decision-making. 🐛

And we work to develop and maintain international biodiversity data standards, especially through the Biodiversity Information Standards organisation (TDWG).

It's estimated that two out of every three species in Australia are unknown to Western science. So there's a lot of biodiversity still to be discovered and studied! 📈

Happy World Bee Day! 🥳 Australia is home to around 2,000 species of native bee. 💐 Most of our native bees, like Blue-ban...
20/05/2026

Happy World Bee Day! 🥳

Australia is home to around 2,000 species of native bee. 💐

Most of our native bees, like Blue-banded Bees from the genus Amegilla, are solitary species.

Only a small minority, like Sugarbag Bees (Tetragonula carbonaria), are social and make honey.

Megachile genus native bees cut up plant leaves or collect plant resins to line their nests.

It’s card work but somebody’s got to do it! 📇 Shout out to our DigiVol team this Volunteer Week 🎉 DigiVol is a crowdsour...
18/05/2026

It’s card work but somebody’s got to do it! 📇

Shout out to our DigiVol team this Volunteer Week 🎉

DigiVol is a crowdsourcing platform, developed by the Australian Museum in collaboration with the ALA, used by institutions around the world to digitise data thanks to volunteers.

Volunteers join virtual expeditions to transcribe handwritten archival records, labels and notebooks, or tag and identify images. 🔓

DigiVol expeditioners are transcribing nearly 19,000 soil data cards for the CSIRO Australian National Soil Archive. This will enable the data to be loaded into the Natsoil database and used further research.

Anyone can become a DigiVol volunteer, all you need is a computer, internet access and an email address. Is this Your Year to Volunteer? 🙋

Captions:
CSIRO’s Georgia Reed has overseen management of the Australian National Soil Archive (ANSA) since joining Australia’s national science agency in 2023.
The Australian National Soil Archive has samples date from the 1920s.


Keeping it Eel! 🌊Happy World Eel day. 🎊Freshwater eels can migrate thousands of kilometres to return to the sea. They ca...
17/05/2026

Keeping it Eel! 🌊

Happy World Eel day. 🎊

Freshwater eels can migrate thousands of kilometres to return to the sea. They can also leave freshwater to travel overland for short distances to get around obstacles.

Moray eels don’t have pectoral or pelvic fins so they can hide in narrow crevices and blend into their surroundings with their colouration.

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