1150 species of plants, animals and fungi in one backyard

February 12, 2024 12:52 AM

Housemates find more than 1150 species of plants, animals and fungi in their backyard. In 2020, at the height of COVID lockdowns, three housemates decided to see how many animals lived in their house and backyard. What they found surprised them.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries (4 comments total)

A big chunk of them were moths! The Ecology paper has a good diagram.

I posted a couple years ago here about a guy who found 500 species of moths in his backyard in Flanders and made a poster of it.
posted by vacapinta at 1:52 AM on February 12 [2 favorites]

MetaFilter: Poo-eaters and a whole lot of moths
posted by chavenet at 3:05 AM on February 12 [1 favorite]

The raw numbers aren’t that surprising, although it’s a very impressive effort to ID them all. Moths and birds are relatively easy, spiders and beetles and things are much harder.

I was startled to learn they got to 437 moth species without using a proper moth trap though.
posted by Bloxworth Snout at 3:41 AM on February 13

The part of the world where I live now is a temperate rainforest that is teeming with life, and there's seemingly something growing on everything here. It wouldn't surprise me if you could find 1000 species growing on a single fallen log. Well, someone could, just not me, because I'm crap at telling things apart. Nevertheless, I am constantly amazed at the diversity around me.

In this place it is not in the least bit subtle how much life is going on all around you.
posted by Nerd of the North at 1:52 PM on February 13