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Some people love ibis enough to have them immortalised in ink.\u00a0 (Supplied: Jacinta Bowler\/Alastair Ingram)<\/p>\n
Eagle-eyed readers might notice the Australian white ibis \u2014 Threskiornis molucca, or the beloved “bin chicken” \u2014 is suspiciously absent.<\/p>\n
Ibis supporters may argue this is an urban-bird hit job. Others may suggest the smelly scavengers are too popular to compete.<\/p>\n
Because while the ibis is a polarising figure, Australia is spoiled for choice when it comes to underrated animals. There are thousands of contenders that don’t get the recognition they deserve.<\/p>\n
So, is the ibis really underrated?<\/p>\n
First, it’s worth understanding what underrated means.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In this competition, we’re looking for incredible native Australian critters that are largely unknown or under-appreciated.<\/p>\n
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Dr Potvin tagged hundreds of birds in south-east Queensland as part of the Big City Birds project.\u00a0 (Supplied: UniSC)<\/p>\n
Dominique Potvin, a bird ecologist at the University of the Sunshine Coast who has spent years researching the Australian white ibis, argues the ibis is not underrated.<\/p>\n
“They’re polarising \u2026 whether you love it or hate it, I don’t think you can underrate it.”<\/p>\n
Vote for Australia’s most underrated animal<\/a><\/p>\n Are you a turtle frog fan, or do you really dig dugongs? Make your vote count as we find the nation’s most underrated animal for National Science Week.<\/p>\n Now, Dr Potvin is no ibis hater. She proudly displays her ibis earrings while being interviewed. In fact, the ecologist is partly responsible for the ibis’s reputation renovation.<\/p>\n Her team’s work, which encouraged citizen scientists to use the Big City Birds app<\/a> to name and follow hundreds of tagged birds, has even made some people warm to the creatures.<\/p>\n “They started thinking ‘Oh there’s my ibis, Jack’ or ‘Oh my gosh, that one went to Bunnings on a Sunday and got a sausage.’<\/p>\n “They would start to get to know them and gained that sense of connection.”<\/p>\n That’s not the case for many other animals, and that can make them more vulnerable to becoming extinct.<\/p>\n Who loves a louse?<\/p>\n Some of Australia’s highly under-appreciated animals actually live on the skin of the ibis, hidden under its feathers.<\/p>\n “I’ve been part of a paper that described a louse species on ibis,” Dr Potvin says.<\/p>\n “Ibis are literally everywhere \u2026 but all of a sudden, you pull apart their feathers and you find there’s an entire ecosystem living on them.”<\/p>\n Understanding why humans care more about the ibis than the lice living on them is worth investigating, according to Kate Umbers, a entomologist at the University of Western Sydney.<\/p>\n Plegadiphilus threskiornis is one of four species of parasitic lice found on Australian white ibis. (Supplied: Renfu Shao\/Yalun Dong)<\/p>\n “Some of the most threatened species are the parasites of the species we love. So parasites of giant pandas, parasites of koalas,” she says.<\/p>\n “There’s a real value judgement there around what is important, what deserves to live, and what deserves to go extinct.”<\/p>\n What about worms \u2026<\/p>\n Dr Umbers is the director of Invertebrates Australia, and is passionate about highlighting the creatures most likely to fly under the radar: insects, molluscs, sponges, and other creatures without a backbone.\u00a0<\/p>\n “For me, the underrated species are the ones that we see every day, that we dismiss as uninteresting.”<\/p>\n That also means they’re easy to overlook.<\/p>\n “The estimates are that around two-thirds of the invertebrates in Australia haven’t been described, and that equates to probably around 200,000 species,” she says.<\/p>\n “It’s fairly feasible that most Australians have undescribed invertebrates in their backyards.”<\/p>\n And this lack of knowledge means that species could be going extinct, without anyone ever having known it existed.\u00a0<\/p>\n Some species of velvet worm are considered endangered. (Supplied: Latty lab)<\/p>\n “Estimates recently suggested 9,000 invertebrates have gone extinct in Australia since colonisation, and that equates to still one to two per week going extinct,” she says.\u00a0<\/p>\n “Some of those might have names, but by and large they probably don’t.”<\/p>\n To get a species described and named, scientists need to include comparisons to other species, undertake DNA testing and much more, according to Dr Umbers.\u00a0<\/p>\n “Describing species is a whole science in itself, and it’s often quite a lot of work,” she said. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u2026 or spiky, slimy, slithery or bitey animals?<\/p>\n Even once species have been described and named, that’s not the end of the battle according to Meg Shaw, an environmental behaviour researcher at Monash University.\u00a0<\/p>\n Animals such as insects, frogs and reptiles simply are less common in our collective consciousness, which can then mean they get fewer resources to help save them.<\/p>\n Turtle frogs live most of their life under the sand, and very little is known about them. (Supplied: Ross McGibbon Photography)<\/p>\n “With legislation, research funding, social media representation, and film and TV, we see a lot more mammals and birds than anything else,” Dr Shaw says.<\/p>\n “In 2022, the federal government announced it was going to give $50 million for koala recovery, and then only gave $10 million to split amongst 100 other threatened species.”<\/p>\n But her recent research into wildlife photos and conservation organisations on social media<\/a> suggests that reversing this trend might be as simple as selecting a wider variety of animals to highlight. \u00a0<\/p>\n The Tjakura, also known as Warrarna or the great desert skink, lives in family groups in complex burrows. (Supplied: Kerenza Sunfly)<\/p>\n “We found that although social media is swamped by photos of mammals and birds, when you looked at the level of engagement that these images were getting, there wasn’t much difference between mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and invertebrates.<\/p>\n “Just sharing more content about these under-represented species so that people recognise that they exist \u2026 is really important to get people aware, and then start raising that that level of empathy for them.”\u00a0<\/p>\n It’s time to vote<\/p>\n We’d love to highlight all of Australia’s underrated animals but we could only choose 10 for National Science Week.\u00a0<\/p>\n Will something furry like the marsupial mole, or slimy like the short-fin eel win? Does the palm cockatoo rock or is the desert skink the true underdog?\u00a0<\/p>\n Find out about each of the contenders<\/a> or vote right now:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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