what is it
Location: Perth Western Australia
November 24, 2010 7:51 pm
Found this bug in the office. none of us know what it is. It was about 1.5cm long and about 1cm wide. it was tapping its fury back things. Can you tell us what bug it is?
Signature: Victoria
Dear Victoria,
We believe it is a Leaf Footed Bug, but it has several features that are unlike any Leaf Footed Bug in the family Coreidae that we are familiar with. First off, it has antennae that can be described as plumose (see BugGuide on Antennae Forms) and the BugGuide page on Plumose Antennae pictures some examples, but no True Bugs. The enlarged portions of the tibiae also appear to be fringed. We had no luck locating anything even remotely similar on the Brisbane Insect Coreid Page. Meanwhile we are posting and featuring your unusual insect in the hope that either we or one of our readers will be able to provide an identification for you.
Correction: November 27, 2010
Thanks to a comment by lttlechkn, this fascinating anomaly has been identified as a Feather Legged Assassin Bug or Ant Assassin, Ptilocnemus lemur. Our observations about the unusual morphology of this creature remain because the antennae and tibiae are highly unusual for Assassin Bugs as well as Coreid Bugs. We apologize profusely to lttlechkn for falsely identifying this as a Leaf Footed Bug which prolonged the actual identification.
Oh my goodness this one was quite a doozy to find… But, find it I believe I have. It isn’t a leaf footed bug (which is what threw me off to begin with) but rather an assassin bug. Ptilocnemus lemur I do believe is the correct name with the (only one I could find) common name of The Ant Assassin. Some links to a less blurry photo…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/2052606088 and http://myrmician.wordpress.com/2009/12/06/ptilocnemus-lemur-the-ant-assassin/ Really hope this helps!
Oh, sorry almost forgot the factsheet as well… http://australianmuseum.net.au/Feather-legged-Assassin-Bug It’s a bit late here, so I am headed to bed… It is an interesting creature though. (Found one more common name of Feather-legged assassin bug)
Thanks so much for researching this unusual Assassin Bug, and we apologize for steering you in the wrong direction with the Leaf Footed Bug misidentification.