Bioblitz! Collecting critters in Santa Monica Mountains, Griffith Park

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The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area and Griffith Park will be abuzz this weekend with hundreds of scientists from across the country and more than 1,000 L.A.-area students as they race to record as many plant and animal species as possible within 24 hours.

Welcome to this year’s Bioblitz, sponsored by the National Geographic Society and the National Park Service, which will span about 160,000 SoCal acres. The hunt begins at noon Friday after a brief kick-off ceremony at Paramount Ranch base camp in Agoura Hills, and it ends at noon Saturday with a Celebrate Biodiversity festival.

Scientists, naturalists and students will comb through areas such as King Gillette Ranch, Leo Carrillo State Park, Malibu Pier and Lagoon and Topanga State Park while exploring tide pools, catching butterflies and owls and identifying wildflowers.

This is the second of 10 annual BioBlitzes that will be held in national park areas leading up to the Park Service’s centennial in 2016. Last year’s event, which tallied up 661 species, was held in Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C.

Stay tuned for a story on this year’s species hunt by Times staff writer Mary Engel in Sunday’s paper.

-- Tami Abdollah