Animals?

Plants?

You can search for recorded sightings of plants or animals in an area. Click on the button next to your choice. If you want to find records of both plants and animals, you will need to do two searches.

All species?

Threatened species?

You can search for recorded sightings of:

• All species in an area. To do this, click on the button next to 'all species'

• Only threatened species - species listed as threatened under either of the NSW Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995 or the Fisheries Management Act 1994. To do this, click on the button next to 'all threatened species'.

• Only animals from a particular class of species. Click on 'a class of species only?', and choose from amphibians, birds, invertebrates, mammals and reptiles. This search method is not available for plants, so it won't appear on the screen if you selected 'plants' at question 1, above.

• Just one species. Type in the common or scientific name of the species, then click on the 'confirm species name' button. If you typed the name correctly, a new screen will show the common and scientific name of the species. To confirm the species click on its scientific name, which will be underlined. See an example.

All records

Records since 1980

Choose whether you want to see:

• All sightings of your chosen species since records started being taken (in some cases this dates back to early colonial times). To do this, click on the button next to 'all recorded sightings'.
  
  

• Only recent sightings, since 1980. To do this, click on the button next to 'since 1980 only'.

You can find species records from several different types of geographic area. Click on 'choose an area...', and select one of the following:

• All of NSW. If you select this option, the atlas will search for all recorded sightings of your chosen species throughout the state.
  
  

• A particular local government area. If you select this, a new window will pop up with a list of all local government areas in NSW. Scroll up and down this list until you find the relevant area. See an example.
  

• The area covered by a particular 1:100,000 topographic map. You will need to know either the name or number of a particular map. For example, much of the central Blue Mountains is covered by the 'Katoomba 8930' map. If you wanted to search for species sightings in the central Blue Mountains, you could:

  • click on 'topographic map name' and select 'Katoomba' on the list that pops up; or

  • click on 'topographic map number' and select '8930' from the pop-up list.
    
    

• A particular national park or other reserve, including nature reserves, state recreation areas, Aboriginal areas and historic sites. If you select this option, a new window will pop up with a list of reserve names. Choose the relevant park or reserve from this list.
  
  

• An area selected by you. Remember that you must select an area at least 10km x 10km. If you select a smaller area, the search area will be automatically extended to approximately 10km x 10km.

  To define your own search area, click on 'choose your own area'. A new window will pop up, showing a map of NSW. You can select a search area in one of two ways:

  • you can use your mouse to move the cursor around the map and draw your area of interest see an example.

  • if you know the geographical coordinates of your search area in geographics (latitude and longitude) in decimal degrees or degrees, minutes and seconds or Australian Map Grid (AMG), you can type in the coordinates directly. see an example