Large Flying Bug with big Pincers
Mon, Dec 29, 2008 at 5:31 PM
Hi Bugman,
We have just moved into our new house here in the Barossa Valley in South Australia. It is the middle of Summer and we seem to have a rather large bug invade us! It has 6 long legs and 2 very long antennae. IT is Brown in colour and seems capable of flying but doesn’t very much. It has 2 earwig type pincers that give a nasty bite. My 3 year old was pinched by one as it was hiding in his clothing. It seems like a giant earwig, and we have had a rather bad earwig problem here, but do they grow this big? It’s about 4cm long but I’ve seen ones that are up to about 6cm. It really clings on to thing, and are hard to shake off. THey seem to like dark places like clothing on the floor and we would like to get rid of them please! I cannot send a photo yet but will if it helps. Thanks.
Kate
Barossa Valley, near Adelaide, South AUstralia
Hi Kate,
We quickly identified your Poinciana Longicorn, Agrianome spinicollis, on the Csiro Entomology web site. We then found additional images on the Insects of Townsville Australia web site. The Save Our Waterways Now web site states: “A common large species in Brisbane is Agrianome Spinicollis, a large khaki species, which often breeds in rot holes of poinciana trees.” Pages 3 through 5 of a PDF ( hawskeswood160-1 ) we found has some technical information on this Prionid that is wide spread but uncommon in Australia.
Update: January 30, 2012
With a new photo that arrived of the true Poinciana Longicorn, we are trying to clean up some errors in our archive. This is actually Parandra frenchi. Trevor made a correction in a comment in February 2010, but alas, we did not update the posting until now. We are also going to correct another posting from NOvember 21, 2009 where we used this same photo to illustrate a letter without an image.
I think the beetle mentioned from South Australia is Agrianome spinicollis but the beetle illustrated here with the original letter from Kate as the Poinciana Longicorn is actually Parandra frenchi which is in another subfamilty, the Parandrinae (Cerambycidae), and which does not occur in South Australia.
I have reviewed the biology etc of both species in my paper (no 160) available from my website http://www.calodema.com; other papers on Agrianome spinicollis can be found in papers 112, 213 and 270 also available free from the website
Best regards, trevor
Hi Trevor,
Thanks so much for all your identifications and corrections, and the information you provided on numerous Australian beetles. When time permits, we will change the posts to reflect your corrections.