For many Australians, there is another way to know when Christmas is around the corner.
The Christmas beetle is a brightly coloured insect that sneaks into bed sheets and crashes into windows and streetlights in the summer.
In Australia, Christmas is associated with the arrival of beautiful, glittery, friendly beetles, according to an associate professor.
The beetles used to be a very common sight. They were so prolific that they were able to pay one pound for 200.
Scientists want to see as many as they can. The platypus and koala are unique to Australia, but for many in the country they have vanished.
The scientists think this is due to habitat destruction where the insects feed off the trees.
The Christmas beetle count project is being led by Dr Latty.
A lot of people seem to remember that the beetles used to be in huge numbers, but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore.
To work out how many Christmas beetles there are, Australians are asked to take pictures of them and send them to an app.
Dr Batty says that without numbers we can't address the issues.
The input from members of the public gives more information than would otherwise be available.
She says that this allows them to get a lot of people out there to collect data, because they don't have the resources to do large scale surveys.
The insects, which are part of the scarab family, play an important role in the eco-system, with the larvae helping aerate soil and the beetles acting as an important food source.
Christmas beetles may be the "canary in the coal mine" when it comes to other species' decline.
"It really worries me that there are many other species that may be going through the same decline, but they are not as big and people haven't noticed," she says.
The rate of mammal extinction in the world is the worst in the world.
After the Australia's 2020 bushfires, scientists called on the public to head into fire-affected areas, where safe to do so, and uploaded pictures to the same app used for the Christmas beetle project
The FrogID app was launched by the Australian Museum and asks the public to record frog calls as populations decline. More than half a million calls have been submitted.
Dr Latty has a message for those on the fence.
Everyone has an opportunity to help protect the environment. We don't have a lot of chances to be involved in large-scale projects.
Why wouldn't you do it if it's going to take you a short time to get that picture uploaded?
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