Six hundred new species for Bonaire
The Bonaire Estafette Expeditie (BEE), organised by Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden, The Netherlands, in cooperation with STINAPA, took place between October 8th 2022 until March 23rd 2023. The aim was to improve knowledge on the terrestrial and freshwater invertebrate fauna of the island. A total of 25 specialists went into the field to collect invertebrates. Home base for the expedition members was biological station Kas Sientifiko, at the entrance of Washington Slagbaai National Park.
Prior to this project, only 168 invertebrate species were known to occur on the island. This number has now been augmented by another stunning 600, although many species still have to be named. Most notable, number-wise, were beetles, flies and moths.
The results have recently been published in a special issue of Nederlandse Faunistische Mededelingen, containing 21 papers written by 52 authors. In 425 pages and over a thousand illustrations, an overview is presented of the invertebrate diversity of the island. Among the new species, there are many new invasive aliens, but also numerous species new to science. Nearly all collected material has been mounted, labelled, identified and digitized either through the CRS or directly on GBIF. All papers are available online through Natuurtijdschriften.