Do you know what this is?
Location: Martin, Western Australia
December 2, 2011 3:46 am
Hi,
I found this bug/insect/alien on my bed and I’m just wondering what it is. It seems to have feathers on its back legs and can do somersaults if it has to.
Do you know what it is?
Thanks
Signature: Hannah
Unidentified Leaf Footed Bug
Dear Hannah,
At first we thought that this was a Leaf Footed Bug or Big Legged Bug in the family Coreidae, but we couldn’t find it pictured on the Brisbane Insect website. Additional research led us to a listing in our own archives that identifies this as a Feather Legged Assassin Bug or Ant Assassin, Ptilocnemus lemur. We had originally misidentified that submission as a Leaf Footed Bug as well. There is some helpful information on the Myrmician website. Here are photos of mounted specimens from the Agriculture Western Australia website. Larena Woodmore also has a very nice photo.
1
Longhorm Weevil?
Location: South-East Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
November 12, 2011 8:56 pm
Dear BugTeam,
Thank you for such a wonderful site: I often spend hours browsing all the different insects from around the world. 
I was wondering if you would be able to help me identify this beetle I found on my washing this (mild November) morning. It looks like a weevil, but the antennae have me stumped: I’ve never seen a weevil with such long, furry antennae before.
Many thanks for your help,
Signature: Jen
Longicorn
Dear Jen,
This is some species of Longicorn or Longhorned Borer Beetle in the family Cerambycidae. It appears to be posing on a fingertip, which would imply that it is quite small. We are having trouble finding a species identification. Your mention of the furry antennae is noteworthy. Though tufted antennae are not rare among Longicorns, they are often a distinguishing feature. We could not find an exact match on the Brisbane Insect website, however, there is one example identified as belonging to the genus Pentacosmia that looks similar to your beetle. Perhaps one of our readers will be able to assist us in this identification.
Unknown Longicorn
1
Wasp?
Location: Perth, Western Australia
December 21, 2011 2:30 am
I was wondering if you can identify this wasp or fly for me. It was on my clothes line on a peg at 7am on 20/12/11. It was quite big – 3cm not including the antenna, and was photographed in Perth, Western Australia.
Signature: Jennifer O
Sawfly, possibly
Dear Jennifer O,
In our opinion, this appears to be a Sawfly. Sawflies are in the same order, Hymenoptera, as Wasps, Bees and Ants, but Sawflies do not sting. We cannot find a match on the Brisbane Insect website, nor did we find a convincing match on the Lifeunseen website. The Australian Museum website indicates there are 176 species in Australia. Larvae of Sawflies are sometimes mistaken for caterpillars and they are communal feeders that may defoliate plants if they are especially numerous. Perhaps one of our readers will be able to either correct our identification or provide a matching online image that may identify the species.
Unknown Sawfly, we believe
wasp
Location: melbourne, australia
December 18, 2011 6:42 am
This huge ie 4-5 cm wasp was dragging huntsman spider up the window. Spider still seemed alive
I live in Melbourne, Australia and it is December-beginning of Summer.
Wasp not aggressive to me, BUT NOT HAPPY when I hit it with a broom. It dropped twitching spider & flew off!
Signature: Dom
Spider Wasp and Huntsman Spider Prey
Dear Dom,
We have several excellent images of Australian Spider Wasps with Huntsman Spider prey in our archives. The female Spider Wasp stings and paralyzes the Spider and then drags it back to her burrow to act as food for her brood. The adult wasps feed on nectar. We can imagine that it is a difficult task for the female Spider Wasp to locate her prey, sting it and then begin the long haul back to her burrow, and it is quite unfortunate that your broom hitting incident interrupted her task. We hope that now that you are better informed, you will allow these food chain dramas to play out without unnecessary interventions in the future.
1
St Andrew’s
Location: NSW, Australia, near the coast.
December 10, 2011 12:17 am
Hi, I noticed you only have a couple of posts about St Andrew’s cross spiders. I thought you might like this picture of one that’s living on a plant outside our house.
Thank you!
Signature: Emma
St. Andrew's Cross Spider
Dear Emma,
Thanks for sending your excellent images of a St. Andrew’s Cross Spider, Argiope keyserlingi, to flesh our our archives. The Australian Museum has a nice page on the species. The name St. Andrew’s Cross Spider refers to the X-shaped stabilimentum woven into the web by the spider. It is commonly believed that St. Andrew was crucified by the Romans on an X-shaped cross in the first century AD.
St. Andrew's Cross Spider
Wow, That’s morbidly interesting! I’m glad you liked the photos. Thank you!
¶ Posted 13 December 2011 § Orb Weavers ‡ ° Also tagged: Bug with hands
Location: Inner Eastern Suburbs, Melbourne Australia
December 10, 2011 6:56 am
Found my cat chasing this bug around my living room. Never seen anything remotely like it.
Signature: Perplexed
Mole Cricket
Dear Perplexed,
Your insect is a Mole Cricket. Mole Crickets are subterranean dwellers that use their front legs to dig tunnels underground. Mole Crickets are found in most temperate regions of the world.
Australian Moth
Location: Sydney’s Northern Beaches
December 5, 2011 7:54 pm
Hello Bugman,
I haven’t been able to identify this moth after considerable searches. It flew into our house at about 9pm last night.
Signature: Ridou
Epidesmia tricolor: Australian Geometrid Moth
Dear Ridou,
Searches like this can take a very long time and still prove unfruitful, but we got lucky. We thought this most resembled a Geometrid Moth, so we searched the Csiro database of Australian Moths and found a match with a photo of a mounted Epidesmia tricolor. The only nice living specimen photos we could find are on The Nature of Robertson website. Your photos are a most welcomed addition to our site.
Epidesmia tricolor
1
Mother Wolf
Location: NSW, Australia
December 4, 2011 5:17 am
Hi again! Thought you might like this picture of a wolf spider and her egg sack. We found her while we where planting a mulberry tree.
Thank you!
Signature: Emma
Wolf Spider carrying her egg sac in her Chelicerae
Dear Emma,
We agree that this looks very much like a Wolf Spider, and that it most closely resembles the Garden Wolf Spider, Lycosa godeffroyi, which is pictured on the Brisbane Insect (and Spider) website. There is however, one very perplexing mystery for us. Wolf Spiders drag their egg sacs behind them from the spinnerets and Nursery Web Spiders including Fishing Spiders carry their egg sacs in their fangs or chelicerae like your individual. Here is a photo from our archive of a Fishing Spider with her Egg Sac and here is a Photo of a Wolf Spider with her Egg Sac, also from our archive. The Find A Spiderwebsite concurs with our statement: “Females produce a white or pale blue spherical egg sac and this may be carried around attached to the spinnerets. When the spiderlings hatch out they crawl onto the female’s upper surfaces, almost completely covering them. It is presumed this serves as an efficient means of dispersing the young spiders.” We hope to get some additional information on this mystery. Unfortunately, we cannot really make out the eye pattern arrangement in your photograph.
Wolf Spider or Nursery Web Spider???
I have a theory about why she was carrying her eggs like that. We disturbed her burrow when we where digging the hole for the tree. So she probably had to grab them quickly, and didn’t have time to do the spinneret/silk thing. It was a shame to wreck her home, but we have LOTS of these spiders around our house. Kind of hard to avoid them. We moved her away after I’d gotten some pictures, so hopefully she found a safe spot for them to hatch.
Thanks for the theory Emma. We still hope to hear from a few folks we contacted.
Eric Eaton responds
Daniel:
You are correct to at least the family level. I suspect her egg sac became detached from her spinnerets and so she is carrying it this way for the time being; or perhaps the sac is about to hatch?
Eric
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