A tiny flying fox previously unrecorded in a rainforest on the Sunshine Coast has been discovered in a four-day scientific survey near Maleny.

Key points: A tiny bat, listed as vulnerable in NSW, has been discovered in the rainforest canopy BioBlitz

A tiny bat, listed as vulnerable in NSW, has been discovered in the rainforest canopy BioBlitz The four-day survey included scientists from various fields, arborists, and artists

The four-day survey included scientists from various fields, arborists, and artists One scientist believes up to 40 per cent of all biological species live in the forest canopy and interest in the field is growing

The tiny 6cm-long, nectar and pollen-eating eastern blossom bat has never been recorded in the canopy of the Mary Cairncross Scenic Reserve, but was discovered using a mist net by QUT student Anita Freudmann, who described the discovery as "exciting and unexpected".

The small fruit bat is listed as vulnerable in NSW, and has been never formally recorded in the 55-hectare Mary Cairncross rainforest reserve.

Ms Freudmann said the find indicated the good health of the Mary Cairncross reserve as habitat for the important rainforest pollinator.

Previously unrecorded at the Mary Cairncross Scenic Reserve, a tiny eastern blossom bat was found during the BioBlitz survey by QUT Zoology PhD student, Anita Freudmann. ( Supplied: Anita Freudmann )

"Like most smaller animals, the blossom bat is vulnerable to habitat fragmentation and disturbance, so in areas where there's been a lot of land clearing and loss of native trees and flowering, this will be a problem for them," she said.

Ms Freudmann was a part of a team of Australian scientists and artists who swapped the laboratory and studio for a rope and harness to survey what has been described as the final biological frontier — the rainforest canopy.

Arborists Sarah Nunn and Jason McDowall measure a strangler fig in the Mary Cairncross Scenic Reserve. ( Supplied: Sunshine Coast Regional Council )

The team took turns being suspended up to 50 metres above the ground to survey the top crowns of five giant strangler fig trees inside the Mary Cairncross Scenic Reserve on the Sunshine Coast as part of the only vertical BioBlitz undertaken in Australia.

The scientists and artists from across a range of disciplines spent four days in the rainforest surveying each strangler fig from the tree's drip line on the ground to the tree's crown to see what was living on each tree, and the relationships formed between plants, animals and insects.

A huntsman spider photographed in the forest. ( Supplied: Sunshine Coast Regional Council )

In one tree's drip line radius, 90 plant species were observed, with more than 1,000 individual plants.

Another 100 specimens of fungi have been sent to the Queensland Herbarium for identification.

It was the first time many on the BioBlitz team, such as artist Sandra Pearce, had experienced the forest from a height.

Artist Sandra Pearce sketches in her journal at the foot of one of the five strangler figs surveyed in the Mary Cairncross BioBlitz. ( ABC Sunshine Coast: Megan Kinninment )

"I'm not really keen on heights, but the opportunity is extremely exciting, so I'm going to do it and see what I can find and it might just be a moment in my art practice that stands out for me," she said.

Others on the survey team had more climbing experience, such as canopy ecologist Jennifer Sanger who learned to climb trees while at university.

"For my PhD, I was studying epiphytes, which are plants that grow on the canopy of other trees — so the ferns and the orchids that are growing right up into the crown of the tree," Dr Sanger said.

"In order to study them, I had to learn how to climb trees so I could access the canopy."

Canopy ecologist Dr Jennifer Sanger in front of a 48m-high strangler fig tree she climbed as part of the Mary Cairncross BioBlitz. ( ABC Sunshine Coast: Megan Kinninment )

Dr Sanger believed as much as 40 per cent of all biological species lived in the forest canopy and interest in this field was growing.

"This is where most of the photosynthesis happens in the forest, up in the canopy," she said.

"In the 70s and 80s it started being called the last biological frontier. It was this realm that was out of range.

"Scientists were really keen to get up there and study what was living up there."

Arborists prepare for scientists to climb up one of five strangler fig trees during the Mary Cairncross BioBlitz. ( Supplied: Evergreen Tree Care )

Determined scientists came up with innovative methods to study this mysterious realm — including construction cranes, hot air balloons, even monkeys.

"Some scientists actually trained monkeys to run up into the tree to collect orchids and ferns and to bring them back down. But obviously, that has its limitations," Dr Sanger said.

"In the early 80s tree climbing was developed by a few people for research and it's an adaption of systems that they're using in cave explorations."

Photographer Steve Pearce on the ropes high in the canopy at the Mary Cairncross BioBlitz. ( Supplied: Adam Sebastian West )

While there is a degree of risk involved in dangling 50 metres from the ground, the discoveries are compelling, such as tiny orchids that only grow high in the canopy and cannot be seen from the forest floor.

"You would have no idea that they're there because some of them are only maybe 2–3 centimetres across," Dr Sanger said.

"The other great thing about this BioBlitz is we have a whole different group of scientists coming together.

"I study plants that grow on trees, but then I am able to talk to people who study ants in the trees, or frogs or fungus in a tree.

"And because all of these species interact with each other, it's really great to be able to get a whole bunch of scientists together and interact.

"We can't properly protect something if we don't know how the basic functions of an ecosystem work, or what species are actually there to protect in the first place."