Subject: Furry Beetle Australia
Geographic location of the bug: Bellingen area, NSW
Date: 02/02/2018
Time: 04:35 AM EDT
Your letter to the bugman: Hi,
Thank you for having this amazing website available for us all 🙂
Could you please identify this beetle which was on the move today, it was a rainy day and we were about to have a subtropical afternoon storm (it is summer here) when ‘he’ walked across the ground in front of us. He appears to have hair growing from his back, and fur from the rest of his body. Some of the fur looks like it has been ripped off recently, and also his leg and antenna appear to be missing segments.
I greatly appreciate your help in identifying this little guy, as I’m having no luck in refernece books or on the net.
How you want your letter signed: Thanks again, Jodie
Dear Jodie,
This is such a distinctive looking beetle, but we are nonetheless having a difficult time verifying its identity. In shape, it reminds us of some New World Pleasing Fungus Beetles, but we really suspect it is in the Darkling Beetle family Tenebrionidae. Perhaps one of our readers will be able to assist in an identity.
Update: March 11, 2018
We just received a comment from Daniel Heald indicating this might be the Darkling Beetle Cyphaleus childreni, and we located a mounted specimen on Europeana Collections and a different mounted specimen on Atlas of Living Australia.
Erotylids can be distinguished from tenebrionids that look similar by tarsal formulas. The formula of the former is 5-5-5, the latter 5-5-4.
The pics are a bit blurry at the legs, though.
Tenebrionidae: Heleini: Cyphaleus possibly childreni
Thanks for the identification.