Found on very well decayed wood in an old firewood pile.
Juvi/2nd year bird heading in WNW direction.
Super rare!
With a super rare infection of Sporodiniella umbellata.
Terrestrial flatworm, Tarkine Bush Blitz, Tasmania, January 2015
Paropsine Beetle
Identified as Paropsisterna on Bowerbird by Martin Lagerwey: "I think this is paropsisterna basalis"
Not a great photo, but an interesting Tachinid. I thought I'd seen it before, but I can't find the photos.
A very large fly; approximately 35mm from antennae to wing tips (with wings folded back); very furry thorax and paler beard; dramatic black with 2 yellow stripes on thorax; wings all opaque deep yellow with three groups of black markings; legs proportionally long, black femurs and yellow tibiae and tarsi; eyes large and compact to head similar to several families (soldier, drone, horse) small gap between eyes suggests possible male?; mouth parts looked like a tube with pad - the creature was sopping something from the sidewalk while I watched.
Galls on Eucalypt leaf, Buaraba
Identified as Coccidae on Bowerbird by Ken Walker: "These will be the male galls."
In dense 'Tea Tree’ forest behind the first row of dunes.
In dense 'Tea Tree’ forest behind the first row of dunes.
This wasp possibly infected with a parasite that has taken over control of the wasp. Appeared unable to let go of the grass stem. Perhaps the small white objects on the hairs under the head and neck area are related.
Beetle larva
Identified as Holopsis brevicornis on Bowerbird by Ken Walker: "This is a weird beetle larva. I found a colony once inside an ant nest under bark and I took a while to get a name. Here is my record: http://www.bowerbird.org.au/observations/10054"
Ant mimic spider
Identified as Myrmarachne rubra on Bowerbird by Ken Walker: "Wonderful find."
6mm long
At the white night lights set up to attract Moths.
30mm wingspan. 13mm long
At white night lights set up to attract Moths. First photos of wings up, later shots at rest.
This species from SE Victoria is known from few species. It is undescribed. Photo by Ken Harris at MV light.
This species was found on Acacia on sand dunes. It is allied with Paropsis confusa but a WA endemic. It is undescribed.
This species does not yet have an official name
This brown variety is unrecorded and appears to be a mimic of Paropsisterna rufobrunnea which partially overlaps in range.
Rhysodine beetle Leoglymmius lignarius. I dug this rare beetle out of a rotting eucalypt log during the February 2014 Bush Blitz on the Tasmanian Land Conservancy’s Five Rivers property on the Central Plateau. Rysodines are in the ground-beetle family, but act very differently from most others in the family as they seem to spend their entire lives almost immobile, embedded in rotten wood, where they apparently feed on slime-moulds. The species is widespread across south-eastern Australia but very rarely seen, at least in the Tasmanian part of its range.
A 7 cm long Smooth Anglerfish found washed up on the beach at Noosa Heads, Queensland, October 2007.