Sydney, Australia – Longicorn?
Sat, Dec 27, 2008 at 8:53 PM
I thought that perhaps this is a type of longicorn beetle but I haven’t been able to find a description of a longicorn with similar antennae. This was found in December (our summer) in the Sydney suburb of Lane Cove. The body length is around 20mm. I’m interested to hear what you think I’ve found.
Paul
Lane Cove, Sydney, Australia
Hi Paul,
We agree that this is some species of Longicorn in the family Cerambycidae, possibly in the subfamily Prioninae. We would think a specimen this spectacular and distinctive would be easy to identify, but an identification is proving to be elusive for us. We found a new Australian website known as Insectographs, but could not find your beetle on it. We searched through all the Cerambycids on the Csiro Entomology page and the only one that looks close is the Feather-Horned Yellow Box Borer, Distichocera macleayi, but it is a mounted specimen. This may be a related species in the same genus, and we would not rule out the possibility that this is an introduced exotic specimen. We don’t feel confident with the Feather-Horned Yellow Box Borer identification unless someone else can write in to substantiate.
Daniel:
I lucked out just doing some calculated surfing:-) The beetle is Piesarthrius marginellus, indeed a longhorned beetle native to Australia. Neat insect!
Eric Eaton
Thanks Eric,
With the information you provided, we found the Feather-Horned Longicorn on a different Csiro Website than the one we originally searched as well as on the Up Close and Spineless website.
I meant to include the link I found:
http://www.cerambycoidea.com/foto.asp?Id=830
Sorry ’bout that!
Eric