More eyes on the prize: an observation of a very rare, threatened species of Philippine Bumble bee, Bombus irisanensis, on iNaturalist and the importance of citizen science in conservation biology

摘要

Of the two Bombus Latreille species found in the Philippines, only Bombus irisanensis Cockerell is endemic to the archipelago and is considered to be of vulnerable stasis by IUCN. While this species has not been reported since the 1990's, here we report on two observations published on iNaturalist.org of B. irisanensis. These observations highlight the importance of natural history databases like iNaturalist, which enable users to upload photographs for expert identification, and we encourage conservationists to take advantage of the data in these repositories.