Key points
- Join The Fly Hunter, Keith Bayless, on a quest to rediscover a rare fly.
- After vanishing for decades Keith finds evidence of the Clisa australis fly in remote loos.
- Keith's quirky quest inspired a children's book: The Very Stinky Fly Hunt.
It all began with a mystery. A rare fly, Clisa australis, had vanished from the scientific record. First discovered and described in the 1960s by legendary entomologist David McAlpine , this peculiar insect was found deep in a bat cave in northern New South Wales. Later, it turned up in pit toilets across national parks. Then-poof-it was gone.
Enter Keith Bayless, CSIRO entomologist and fly hunter. Armed with nets, traps and an unshakable curiosity, Keith set out to find the missing fly. His journey would take him from forest gullies to the walls of public toilets, and eventually into the pages of a children's book: The Very Stinky Fly Hunt .
"I've checked the walls and ceilings of an embarrassing number of public toilets in parks since 2015," Keith admits with a laugh.
But this wasn't just a quirky quest. Clisa australis is the only known endemic mainland Australian species in its family, and it's closely related to fruit flies, some of which are major agricultural pests. Understanding its biology could help scientists learn how flies evolved from feeding on waste to feeding on plants.
Enter the fly hunter
Keith's hunt began in earnest when he moved to Australia in 2018. He visited the original cave site near Kempsey, but nature had other plans.
"The cave was on a cliff and surrounded by stinging trees," he said.
"I didn't have the right gear to get in. David McAlpine had worked with bat experts to access it back in the day."
With the cave off limits, Keith turned to a less glamorous but surprisingly fruitful habitat: national park dunnies.
"They're often near carparks, so it's easy to pop over and check," he said.
"You don't have to tell everyone you're looking for flies instead of using the facilities."
A surprise in a trap
Years passed with no sign of the elusive insect. Then, in a twist worthy of a nature documentary, Keith found Clisa australis in a Malaise trap (see image below) near Robertson, NSW.
"It was nestled under land leeches in a sample from a dark, humid gully. That fly had never been collected via passive trapping before," Keith said.
"The first one I saw within a toilet was sitting on the toilet roll. It really stood out, blue and shiny."
More specimens followed near Lake George alongside the Federal Highway between Canberra and Goulburn, and far from any toilet where it was previously seen, on the New South Wales South Coast. The rediscovery raised new questions. Was the fly migrating? Had it always been widespread but rare? Or were these new, never-before seen undescribed species?
"There's still a lot we don't know," he said.
"We're sequencing genomes to understand where these flies fit in the evolutionary tree. It's exciting science."
From fieldwork to storybook
And now, thanks to The Very Stinky Fly Hunt, Keith's adventure is inspiring a new generation of bug lovers. Written by CSIRO science communicator, Andrea Wild, and illustrated with humour and heart, the book turns Keith's research into a delightful romp through the world of entomology.
"It's not something I ever expected. But it's a great way to share science with kids, and show that discovery can happen anywhere, even in a toilet," he said.
Start your own hunt
Keith encourages citizen scientists to get involved in science and their own fly hunt."Take pictures of flies. Post them on platforms like iNaturalist, there's still so much to discover."
So next time you're in a national park loo, take a peek at the wall.
You might just spot a shiny blue fly doing a mating dance. And if you do, snap a pic. Keith Bayless is counting on you.
