A plant believed to have vanished decades ago has been rediscovered in remote northern Australia, thanks to a chance observation uploaded to the citizen science platform iNaturalist. Scientists say the remarkable find highlights how everyday people are becoming increasingly important to modern biodiversity research and conservation.
The discovery began when Aaron Bean, a professional horticulturalist who was helping band birds on a large outback property in Queensland, noticed an unusual plant growing in the landscape. He photographed it and later uploaded the images to iNaturalist after regaining phone service.
That simple upload set off an extraordinary chain of events.
Among the millions of observations shared on the platform, the photos eventually caught the attention of botanist Anthony Bean from the Queensland Herbarium. He immediately recognized the species as Ptilotus senarius, a rare plant that had not been documented since 1967 and was widely considered extinct in the wild.
Anthony Bean had actually described the species himself a decade earlier.
