Some may just see them as that thing on your broccoli plant while others have a passion for them in fact, some people dedicate their whole lives to them like Francis Polkinghorne Pascoe.

Mr Pascoe, who was born in 1813 in England, served in the navy and was posted to Australia where he spent his spare time annotating and collecting thousands of insects and writing books on "zoological classifications".

He had focused on long-horn beetles of South East Asia and the Pacific.

I mean, who needs rum when you have beetles, right? Fun guy, but we need guys like Francis.

There are now 2,500 beetles classified by him, and one of them is acalolepta ovina which he named in Queensland in 1863.

In 160 years, this particular beetle has only been seen another 17 times anywhere in the world. In fact, it has never been seen outside of South East QLD until our own version of Francis came along.

Heidi Duncan captured the 19th sighting of this beetle in the world at Bocoble, the only sighting ever outside of QLD.

Heidi's photo is now the preferred image used by our national database for describing this insect.

Heidi, who has lived in the Mudgee region for 14 years, is also responsible for helping #themudgeebeeproject map most of the native bees in our region.

She has also hit 500 observed and documented species for the Mudgee region on iNaturalist. Many of these sightings are firsts in our region and some are firsts for NSW.

"Ever since I was a kid I loved looking for plants and animals, and started photographing them in my teens when I got my first camera," she said.

"I feel very fortunate to have been able to see the amazing variety of plants and animals we have in the region and to add them to ALA."

Heidi has been a part of the #themudgeebeeproject for approximately a year and said she will remain involved due to the project's important.

"There's a lack of knowledge and recordings of native bees in our region and I think its important to bring them into the spotlight because they are so important to the ecosystem," she said.

"A lot of people don't realise we have so many native bees in our backyards."

If you would like to know more about #themudgeebeeproject, click here.

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