Australia has a rich and intriguing biota. Species Bank is a project that aims to expand the wildlife experience of the Australian community by describing and illustrating species of interest and/or importance to the community, their interactions with each other and ourselves, and their importance as a natural part of the environment we all share. Information on estimates of species numbers is given in Numbers of Living Species in Australia and the World.

Species Bank

Species Bank provides simple, reliable information about a variety of Australian species. Each description is illustrated and includes information on distribution, biology and interaction with humans under several headings. In some cases, additional images, audio and video files may be viewed or played by clicking on the thumbnail image or link. Some species records also include links to general topics which provide additional information on the topic relevant to all the species that link to it.

There are just under 400 Species Bank records. A list of Phylums and the next lower taxonomic rank are shown on the Records by phylum. From here links to the each of the Phylum record lists can be accessed. These pages display for a particular phylum all the available records for that phylum, sorted alphabetically by Family and Scientific name.

The main groups of species represented so far are: Spiders, Ants, Bees, Desert Fishes, Crabs, Lobsters, Crayfishes, Barnacles, Corals and Sea Anemones, Sea Stars, Sea Urchins, Bivalves, Squids, Cuttlefishes, Octopus, Sea Snails, Limpets, Cones, Chitons and some Flowering Plants and Fungi.

ABRS welcomes scientific contributions or sponsorship funds to enhance this project. We encourage authoritative submissions on any species for publishing in the database. All submissions will be subject to peer review and editing before being added to the database, and full Acknowledgments will be given for all contributions published. Your information must be submitted in accordance with Species Bank Author's Guidelines that can be provided on request. These guidelines include information about the Copyright conditions that must be met for all text and multi-media.