Subject: Australian Beetle
Location: East Fremantle, Australia
December 3, 2014 3:54 pm
Here’s one that’s quite distinctive — in my eyes it looks like an Aboriginal painting — but I can’t find anything like it on the web.
It’s about 12mm (1/2″) long, without the antennae. The picture was taken on Dec. 3, 2014 (beginning of summer), on an indigenous tree in an urban park rather late in the day (4:20pm).
Signature: Norm Jackson
Dear Norm,
This is not a beetle. It is a Beautiful Cockroach nymph, Ellipsidion australe, which we identified on the Insects of Brisbane website, or it is a related species of Cockroach in the genus Ellipsidion. This is not a species that infests homes.
Wow. A PRETTY cockroach. Who’d have thunk it?
You’re not allowed to say Beautiful and Cockroach consecutively.