what are they???
what are they???
Location: temora nsw
March 2, 2011 5:37 am
i found the beatles in my font yard already dead. i have never see them before and would like to know what they are. its summer and was very hot that week around 40
Signature: melissa harris
Dear Melissa,
We believe at least one of your beetles is a Green Fiddler Beetle, Eupoecila australasiae, which is a highly variable species. In some individuals, the markings are green and in others they are yellow. There is also some variation in the degree of the markings. Your individual does not appear to have any markings on the pronotum, the foremost part of the thorax, and this is a characteristic we have not found in other images posted online. The Brisbane Insect Website has some nice images of a yellow marked individual. Oz Animals has an image of a yellow marked individual with significantly different markings than your individual. Climate Watch indicates that they have dark brown or black legs, and one of your beetles has distinctly yellow legs. You never sent an image of the dorsal surface of the second beetle you found, so we are curious what it looks like. We wonder perhaps if this is a similar but less well documented member of the same genus. Our searching did turn up another species in the genus, Eupoecila inscripta, which is pictured on FlickR, but it is a very different beetle. We will tag this posting as a Mystery since we are uncertain if both beetles represent the same species. Perhaps one of our more knowledgeable readers will be able to assist.
Correction courtesy of Karl
Hi Daniel and Melissa:
The beetles in the posted images closely resemble Chlorobapta frontalis (Scarabaeidae: Cetoniinae). Melissa’s image does show a greenish margin around the front of the pronotum, although it is difficult to make out, but other markings on the rest of the dorsal surface are slightly different. The underside looks quite similar. The differences could be due variability in the species, or this may be a related species. There is one other Chlorobapta species in NSW, C. besti, but I was unable to find any images or descriptions. I can’t be certain about the species, but I believe that Chlorobapta is probably the correct genus. Regards. Karl