The eighth Ōtautahi Christchurch City Nature Challenge took place on the final weekend end of April, with results showing there are still new discoveries being made, and even more remaining undiscovered.

The event is run on the iNaturalist app, which helps you identify the plants and animals around you. This year’s edition saw 26,268 observations, with 2281 species being found by 354 observers in Christchurch.

This year for the first time schools were able to participate in a meaningful way, thanks Environment Canterbury’s Enviroschools team, which took identification skills and tools to the city’s tamariki.

Event held across the weekend leant a chance to connect Christchurch’s biodiversity community with the biodiversity that’s hidden in plain sight all around us and to get excited about the possibility of what they might find.

Throughout the weekend, events included mini bio-blitzes hosted in parks by community groups and Environment Canterbury; subject matter experts from University of Canterbury and Lincoln University led talks for tamariki; and much more.

Worldwide, more than 76,000 species were documented, with 106,354 observers, and just over 3,000,000 observations across 61 countries. Over 70 species were identified for the very first time. Christchurch ranked 20th out of the 770 cities taking part, globally.

The third annual Ōtautahi City Nature Challenge Awards night was held this week, co-hosted by Christchurch City Council, the NZBRN, and Lincoln University’s Jon Sullivan.

Christchurch’s funky awards and interesting data gathered:

• Most observations: Noah made 2008 observations of 650 species in just three days.
  
• Most observations by a new iNaturalist user: Anabel contributed 439 observations during the challenge
  
• Most species observed: Noah topped the charts with 650, and second place was Nathan with 481.
  
• Biosecurity award: Sean made the first research grade observation from Canterbury of the Portuguese millipede, Ommatoiulus moreleti.
  
• Most funky fungi: William for the second iNaturalist observation of the rust fungus Puccinia helichrysicola.
  
• Bodacious bird: Ian grabbed the 20th Christchurch district observation of a White-winged tern.
  
• Schools Challenge: Te Waka Unua.

Check out the below video, filmed by Seiya Hayashi, a Lincoln University student, during the challenge.