sessilefielder's Favorites

3612/3 Photo taken by me during a school trip to Mana Pools. The buff charged us while we were taking a morning break - my bag can be seen on its left. It later moved off and the 3 boys came to safety. It had been wounded by a poacher and a few days later it was shot by a ranger.

A green chiton attached to a half crab. We observed this alien looking commensal beast while undertaking an intertidal survey on the reefs off Hawera. It made us jump when we first turned over the rock.

Voracious spider captured hummingbird in web at sugar feeder. I did not think about location of web, other than it was uncomfortable to avoid when going through garden gate, when I rehung the feeder. A few hours later, she had trapped and beheaded and wrapped the hummingbird.

My dad (a Walt Disney Imagineer) actually sent me these pictures. Taken on the Tower of Terror ride structure at Disney's California Adventure, a friend of his commented that they had been finding dead sparrows amongst the rafters of the tower (and had seen a large bird as well). My dad emailed me the pictures that his friend took, and to my surprise it turned out to be a Peregrine falcon! Certainly a good spot for him/her- high vantage point and lots of fat sparrows fed by park guests!

Spotted Lanternfly dead, stuck to Ailanthus altissima tree. Using information from a recent Cornell paper finding two native species of pathogenic fungus that kill SLF, I believe this to be Batkoa major (currently only the genus Batkoa is in iNaturalist. I would need a curator to add this species B. major). About 97% of dead SLF stuck to trees were due to infection of B. major in this study in PA. Here’s a link to the paper - https://www.pnas.org/content/116/19/9178
I inspected the cadaver rather closely and it appears to have had white, fuzzy fungal growth on the underside and near the face. Any help or discussion is welcome! Thanks :)

What is it?
Identified as Lepismatidae on Bowerbird by Matthew Connors: "Wow, that is stunning! I've never seen or even heard of a silverfish like it - fantastic find"

Last true bug for now! What's this crazy little guy? I reckon an assassin bug or something related, but I will need to confirm. Using this key with the features: Labium resting in a curved position; labium inserted at front or under front of head; and head unmodified (without pedunculate eyes); this yields only Nabidae and Reduviidae. A quick look through the Australian Nabidae genera results in nothing remotely similar, so it is indeed a reduviid! Australia has quite a few reduviids, so I will need to work a bit harder here.

Very luckily, there is an excellent illustrated key to Reduviidae subfamilies and tribes here. Australia has the following twelve subfamilies: Ectrichodiinae, Emesinae, Epiroderinae (in the key as the synonym Physoderinae), Harpactorinae, Holoptilinae, Peiratinae, Reduviinae, Saicinae, Stenopodainae, Tegeinae (in the key as a tribe of Harpactorinae), Triatominae, and Visayanocorinae. It would also seem that the subfamily Tribelocephalinae has been split from Ectrichodiinae (listed in ALA as a tribe), so we should look out for that one too. Right off the bat Visayanocorinae looks promising, but we will go through the key anyway and see if we can be definitive about it. Okay, let's start the key. The first character we can skip (4 visible rostral segments vs 3) because all Australian subfamilies have 3 visible rostral segments. On to character 3. I am honestly very surprised that the wing venation is clear enough here to see that there is no quadrate/pentagonal/hexagonal cubitus, so we can rule out Stenopodainae and Harpactorinae (and Tegeinae by that). Character 5 we can skip because Australia has no Chryxinae, but the characters do indeed fit (labium elongate, membrane with >1 cell). Character 6 unfortunately I do not think we can see properly - the presence or absence of fossula spongiosa on the foretibiae. The foretibia certainly looks expanded at the apex, but is that fossula spongiosa or is that just expansion? We will have to follow both paths and hope that it is easy to pick between them at the end.

We'll follow the 'absent' path first, so on to character 7. The next is easy; there is no long setation on the legs and antennae and the antennae are clearly four-segmented, so Holoptilinae is out (and it helps that I just went through them). Character 8 is also fairly easy - there is no prominent spur on the front of the foretibia, and in fact the expansion of the foretibia seems to be a ventral one. So Epiroderinae is out. Character 10 - the second visible labial segment is distinctly curved, but this eliminates only part of Triatominae so we will leave it in for now and proceed to the next character. Character 11 is even easier (body not flat and membrane without 3 ending veins) but it unfortunately only rules out a non-Australian subfamily. Character 12 rules out Tribelocephalinae, as our bug is not woolly and does not have the pedicel folded underneath the scape. For characters 13 and 15 (14 does not apply to us) we have the same situation as with character 11 but I will not write them out. Character 16 - does the foretibia have a ventral spur? It would appear to have one, but I am not 100% certain. Yes leads us to Character 17, where we have Visayanocorinae and the non-Australian Vesciinae. Following that (first visible labial segment much longer than second) we do indeed get Visayanocorinae, which is my suspicion as to the correct ID. Following 'no' for the foretibial ventral spur, Character 18 asks us about the presence or absence of ocelli, which of course we cannot see. Luckily, following 'present' only gives us non-Australian subfamilies. Following 'absent', we can easily rule out Emesinae (short forecoxa) but we get Saicinae (although the lack of bulbous 2nd visible labial segment is evidence against it).

What if we say the fossula spongiosa are present? The transverse sulcus on the pronotum is at the middle, so by Character 21 we rule out Peiratinae. Character 22 is the same as Character 10 so we again rule out part of Triatominae. I would expect this is it for them but we'll keep them in just in case there's a third part. The scutellum has no paired posteriorly-projecting prongs (and it looks like there are no pseudosegments in the antennae), so we can rule out Ectrichodiinae with Character 23. Character 24 is a bit more difficult - does this have the "head usually elongate; if short, then eyes usually reniform and neither strongly pedunculate nor covering almost the entire lateral surface of the head", or does it have the "head short, with semi-globular eyes that are either medium-sized and slightly to strongly pedunculate or large and almost covering the entire lateral surface of the head"? It does not really appear to fit either option - the head is elongate but the eyes are quite large. However, this is the last relevant key character for us - the first option leads to Reduviinae and the second leads only to several non-Australian subfamilies. So we finish the subfamilial key, and we can rule out Triatominae for good. I think we will keep Reduviinae for now though.

Okay, so we have three subfamilies to check - Reduviinae, Saicinae, and Visayanocorinae. I think we can safely rule out Reduviinae as they are very robust insects, and a quick check of all the Australian genera reveals nothing even remotely similar to this one. Okay, so Saicinae and Visayanocorinae. What does the key have to say about these two?

For Saicinae:

"Saicinae are diagnosed by the absence of ocelli and fossula spongiosa, the second visible labial segment frequently expanded and basally bulbous, the forecoxa at most 3 times as long as wide, the usually enlarged and slightly bulbous tarsal segments, the acetabulum of the foreleg oriented ventrad, and the opposing surfaces of head and labium frequently with stiff setae or spines."

For Visayanocorinae:

"Visayanocorinae are characterized by a foretibial spur projecting beyond the tarsal insertion, the small size, a very long second (first visible) labial segment, long second tarsomere, and the scape longer than the head. Members of this subfamily also have very smooth cuticle and lack ocelli and an anteocular sulcus."

So certainly this is a very much better match for Visayanocorinae. What are the options for Saicinae though? Only two genera, Micropolytoxus (3 spp.) and Polytoxus (4 spp.). Going by this paper, Polytoxus has a pair of long spines on the pronotum, so that is out. From the same paper it also seems that Micropolytoxus is rather different, being paler and with some small spines. So Visayanocorinae it is!

In Australia we have only two species of Visayanocorinae (and only about ten in the whole world!), Carayonia australiensis and Wardamanocoris formosus. Both were described in the same paper, specifically this one. And luckily it is very easy to distinguish the two! W. formosus is quite a different species, and is only known from NT anyway, whereas C. australiensis matches well and has been found not far away. So I am very happy with that. And as far as I can tell, these are the first live photos of not just this species or genus, but of this entire subfamily! So that's really cool. And indeed the only other photographs of specimens I can find at all are the ones in the key I used and this one from Africa. Double cool!

This 35cm mullet must have gotten stuck in the undercarriage of my vehicle when I went through the Ivanhoe Crossing in the evening. The stench by Friday morning alerted me and I managed to drag it out. Damaged the head somewhat trying to hook it out with a fish hook and line as I could not pull it backwards.

Ew.

Well, I guess I'm in the unique position of having killed a fish...with a ute.

Rough Greensnake catching an orbweaver spider. It got close to the web and then stayed there for what felt like 10 minutes (not sure it was waiting to figure out how to catch the spider or because I had disturbed it). After a while, it finally caught the spider and seemed to have no trouble eating it. My first time seeing a wild snake catch its prey!

A friend from Mayne Island sent this suggesting it was a murder hornet? Thank you to this group for helping identifying it as a European hornet. Found on Mayne Island, BC apparently. See comments below. No I did not take this photo myself.

hunting from nearby tree, about 10:30am, looking intently down at snow, then landed and mantled for a couple of minutes, burying its head into the snow several times before flying off in the opposite direction

The squirrel had run along the overhead power lines for at least one city block when the Mockingbird starting harassing it at least 50 yards before arriving in the bird's territory (the area around my house). The mockingbird continued to harass it for another 25 yards past its territory.

The only time I ever see a squirrel in my neighborhood is when they are running along the power lines.