Male Pollen Beetle (aussietrev)
Mon, Dec 29, 2008 at 8:04 PM
Hi guys,
This is a male Pollen beetle Dicranolaius bellulus in the family Melyridae (sex indicated by the enlarged 3rd segment of the antennae) Only around 8mm overall and very fast. The dark areas on the back are metallic blue/green depending on the lighting. I reckon that thorax looks like a Xmas cherry!
Happy New Year all
aussietrev
Queensland
Hi Trevor,
Thanks for your wonderful image of a male Pollen Beetle. We posted three new Australian beetles to the web site today. The Csiro Entomology web site has a drawing of this species showing the enlarged antenna segment. We can only speculate that those enlarged antennae segments have something to do with mate location. The Brisbane Insect web site also has some photographs of this member of the family Melyridae, the Pollen Beetles. This is our last posting for awhile. We are wasting away the precious winter daylight hours in Los Angeles when we could be gardening. We have some collard greens to harvest and much weeding to do. Recent rains have saturated the soil and it is now the warmest day in over a week.