Hey all, Got out the camera as usual today and caught this little guy changing it's skin. The first photo was as it was finishing off when I first spotted it. The 2nd is just thereafter. The 3rd is about 45 minutes later as you can see the colours are darkening. Then I lost light and the bug. The bug would be no more than 10mm in size max. I've looked look up assassin bug nymphs because I've seen several adults and eggs of these around the yard but apart from shape they don't appear to look similar. I cannot find anything in books and tried typing a description into google but got nowhere. If anyone can give me some help identifying this little fella that'd be greatly appreciated. Because I don't know what type of bug it is I don't know where to start looking really.
Boerlagiodendron 'Highlander' and that is about all the info I can give except this extra flower shot and a link to one of my other threads with little extra but a couple of photos: http://www.botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/forums/showthread.php?t=47280 I've found little on this particular cultivar, it came tagged with minimal information. All I can say is that it prefers shade and it has similarities in appearance to Schefflera.
No clue. You could ask the kind folks at BugGuide.net what they think it is.... My first guess would be a weevil of some sort, but I can't see wing casings so I'm probably wrong on that. Australia has so many wierd bugs to begin with, too.
Thanks Lorax I'll send them a picture and see what they think. I'll try find a more localised bug i.d. place too if I can, maybe they'll be able to help there too.
Yeah, I forgot to say - check with the entomologists at your closest local University. They probably know.
Hemipterans of some sort - notice the beak-like stabbing and sucking mouth parts. They will either be stabbing these into plants or into (usually) other invertebrates. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemiptera
I sort of had it narrowed down that far but, as the page you've got as a link says, that still leaves me around 80,000 species to choose from, of course I can go further and keep getting drawn to the Assassin Bugs - Family Reduviidae (see link), I've emailed this lot of pictures to this place: http://www.brisbaneinsects.com/brisbane_bugs/Reduviidae.htm Sounds like they've been studying insects in S.E. Qld, about 5 hrs South of here hopefully I'll hear back soon. There's one more picture I'll add of a side on view, it's a bit blurred but I think there's definite signs of a proboscis. I'll post any final outcome.
Body posture looks predatory. If several are arranged about the same plant yet none are sucking it that also supports such an impression.
There's the other problem, it's not very common and I haven't seen many at all, ever. I've lived in this area close to 10 years and dealt with plants and pests regularly and this is one of the less common I've come across. I guess the size of it makes it pretty insignificant and I'd overlook it normally but they are definitely not abundant.
Hold up. Seeing it from the side like that and I recognize it - that proboscis is really distinct. Definitely a young assassin. I had something related colonizing my milkweeds - they hung out there and ate just about everything bug that tried to visit that corner of the yard.
Cheers, at least it sounds as though I'm on the right track. I have to go into Brisbane next week and I'll take these pics into the Queensland Museum. I remeber them having a decent insect collection. They should be able to help out, I just can't find a match anywhere I've looked so far.
Woohoo, Thanks to the knowledgable people at the Queensland Museum I have a positive i.d. the nymph of a Fruit-spotting Bug - Amblypelta sp. It's a pest mainly of Banana, Paw Paw and Lychee, I have 2 of those, as if the fruit fly wasn't bad enough... at least they aren't nearly as high in numbers. It doesn't seem to be a very common garden pest probably more happy on farms with plenty of food to keep them going. Here are another couple of pics from a few days ago and you can see a definite proboscis in the second. It's well equiped for attacking those softer fruits. Being from the family Coreidae it's actually related closest to the Crusader Bug in a previous post of mine here: http://www.botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/forums/showthread.php?t=47679 And a link to some pictures of an adult and a little more info: http://www.geocities.com/brisbane_bugs/GreenCoonBugs.htm
Hey all, I know it's an older thread but I can add a picture of the adult (my baby's all grown up:}) to help complete this thread. I think I should also mention I found a small colony of them feeding on Dypsis (palm) seed a few metres away, which I think is where this one may have strayed from. For sake of interest I am going to add some recent nymph photos of the crusader bug to that thread too for comparison and to try and show some of the instars (stages) of it's lifecycle.
Can I suggest adding some tags to yr notes so that if some one trips over it on google KEYWORDS they can get a useful set of pics. Very easy to do Liz
Cheers Liz, Good to hear you're still (somewhat) safe down there, seriously hope they get things under control soon. I see they think some may be due to powerlines coming down in the extreme heat, meanwhile the top end here is sitting in water, unbelieveable.
I see the tags well done. Had a close shave last night. 5 km by road less by crow some darling lit a fire just on edge of forest at Belgrave. 2 helicopters and 12 firetrucks to stop it even so it got 5 hectares and if it had got away God knows the whole Dandenong hills could have gone up. The fire was lit to create maximum damage. This is a major area on the edge of suburbia. Liz
