Drhoz

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8317060... #4169 - Fam. Laemophloeidae - Lined Flat Bark Beetles ‘throat bark’, so named from the grooves on the head, neck and shoulders.

Tiny flat beetles, with 40 genera and about 450 species, most common in the tropics. Adults of most feed on fungi underneath the bark of dead trees - hence the flat shape - although some prey on scolytid bark beetles and are more round in cross-section. Lakelands, Perth

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8316712... #4168 - Echinolittorina australis - Australian Nodiwink A periwinkle native to the western coastline of Australia. The genus itself is large and found on tropical and temperate coastlines of much of the world. Point Peron, Perth, Western Australia.

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8316503... #4167 - Botrylloides sp. - Colonial Seasquirt Probably Botrylloides perspicuus, which translates as ‘transparent, like a cluster of grapes’

en.wikipedia.orgWilliam Abbott Herdman - Wikipedia

B. perspicuus was first described by William Abbott Herdman in 1886. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William... It’s a colonial tunicate native to the coastlines of Australia and parts of the Indo-Pacific, but has been introduced as an invasive hull-fouling organism to other parts of the world.

As the zooids bud and grow they form a firm, gelatinous mat or lobes up to 30cm wide over hard surfaces, seaweeds, or seagrasses (as here). They can be pink, red, and orange to green, blue, and yellow. Point Peron, Perth, Western Australia.

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8314551... #4166 - Tetrapus sp photos by Blythe Crowe, on the Paleoentomology facebook group ‘four-legged’ because males have greatly reduced mid-legs.

Her male offspring - usually wingless and pale - will hatch first, and in some species then fight to the death to claim a monopoly over their unmated sisters.

In some fig wasp species their only other function is to chew an exit hole for their sisters to leave through, but most will never even see the outside of the fruit. The domesticated fig is self-pollinating, in case you were worried about minute wasps inside your food.

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8314551... #4166 - Tetrapus sp photos by Blythe Crowe, on the Paleoentomology facebook group ‘four-legged’ because males have greatly reduced mid-legs.

In some figs, this opening is spiral-shaped, and matches the spiral shape of their wasp’s head.

botanicgardens.org.auExploring Fig Wasps | Botanic Gardens of SydneyFigs can be enormous park trees or small fruit trees, and whatever the plant’s size they produce unusual fruit which have a specific arrangement with a little wasp.

The female wasp will then clamber around inside the fig, spreading pollen she brought with her from her home fig, and laying eggs inside the ovaries of some of the fig flowers. www.botanicgardens.org.au/teachers-and...

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8314551... #4166 - Tetrapus sp photos by Blythe Crowe, on the Paleoentomology facebook group ‘four-legged’ because males have greatly reduced mid-legs.

Agaonids and figs are obligate mutualists - in almost all cases, each requires the other to reproduce, and in many the fig has a single fig wasp pollinator. Ficus (Pharmacosycea) maxima, for example, is only pollinated by Tetrapus americanus.

Fig flowers are tiny, and line the inside of a fleshy receptacle that will become the fruit. This synconium has a tiny opening at one end, called an ostiole, through which the female fig wasp will enter, often tearing off her antennae and wings in the effort.

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8314551... #4166 - Tetrapus sp photos by Blythe Crowe, on the Paleoentomology facebook group ‘four-legged’ because males have greatly reduced mid-legs.

I got the ID based on the shape of the head, antennae, and the serrations on the underside of the head. They’re pretty distinctive, and at least two species in the genus are known from the amber deposits.

Tetrapus species are endemic to the Americas, and obligate mutualists with figs in the subgenus Pharmacosycea. They’ve been around for an estimated 87.5 million years, and appear to be one of the first Agaonid genera to evolve.

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8314551... #4166 - Tetrapus sp photos by Blythe Crowe, on the Paleoentomology facebook group ‘four-legged’ because males have greatly reduced mid-legs.

A very unusual ID for me - a fossil fig wasp in Dominican amber. The amber could be anywhere between 15 to 40 million years old, but the genus - a Fig Wasp - is still around.

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8314411... #4165 - Stenobiella sp. ‘small narrow living thing’

The family was first named by Anton Handlirsch in 1906, and has 24 genera and 110 living species distributed patchily worldwide, mostly in tropical and subtropical habitat. The fossil record is quite good too.

Certainly better known as fossils than as living animals - in the few species where larval stages have been documented, Berothids prey on termites. On my porch. Wellard, Perth.

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8314342... #4164 - Solanum linnaeanum - Yellow Bitter-Apple

AKA devil’s apple and apple of Sodom, although the latter is also used for other nightshades and entirely unrelated plants.

A poisonous and excessively spiny nightshade species native to Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, and an invasive species in Australia, New Zealand, various Pacific Islands,and parts of Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan. Karnup, Perth, Western Australia.

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8314342... #4164 - Solanum linnaeanum - Yellow Bitter-Apple

The plant has an unusual taxonomic history - due to confusion about what species the original Solanum sodomeum described by Carl Linnaeus actually was, the original name and description were discarded in 1986, and the plant named after Linnaeus instead.

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8314203... #4163 - Eucalyptus kingsmillii - Kingsmill’s Mallee

First formally described by the botanist Joseph Maiden in 1929 in A Critical Revision of the Genus Eucalyptus, and Walter Kingsmill, who was a Western Australian politician involved in forestry matters, and collected the type specimen in 1918 from an area close to the Mount Keith minesite.

A small but lovely eucalypt, sometimes reaching 8m in height, from the arid central areas of Western Australia and South Australia, with dark pink flower buds, flowers, and developing gumnuts, that grows in thin sandy soil over sandstone and ironstone. King’s Park, Perth, Western Australia

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8314133... #4162 - Subtribe Gastrosericina A Crabronid wasp, probably Tachysphex or Tachytes. Secret Harbour, Perth

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8313923... #4161 - Fam. Megastigmidae ‘large spot’ - because the wasps have a prominent thickened spot on the leading edge of the forewing.

A tiny parasitic wasp spotted in Thornlie, Perth, back in 2014. Back then it would have been in the Torymidae, but their subfamily got promoted to full family status in 2018.

For those species where anything is known, larvae may feed on plants or other invetebrates as parasitoids. Many target galls - sometimes the gall creator, sometimes the gall itself. Thornlie, Perth, Western Australia

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8313854... #4160 - Ethemaia funerea ‘funereal good bumps’ Described by the Australian entomologist Arthur Mills Lea in 1904.

Anyway, this beetle, one of 5,432 species Lea described, was spotted halfway up a wall in Lakelands south of Perth, not far from the type location. What it was doing up a wall is a minor mystery, since they’re usually found under rocks and logs - which is the only thing known about their biology.

The larvae of others in the genus are occasional pests of broadleaf crops, chewing on the underside of leaves and pupating in the soil. All are endemic to Australia. Lakelands, Perth, Western Australia

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8313854... #4160 - Ethemaia funerea ‘funereal good bumps’ Described by the Australian entomologist Arthur Mills Lea in 1904.

Lea (1868 – 1932) was interested in insects as a child and studied them in his spare time, and eventually became assistant entomologist for the minister of Agriculture at Sydney, government entomologist in WA and again in Tasmania, where he succeeded in controlling the codling moth.

He also found a biocontrol agent against the moth Levuana iridescens, a pest of coconuts, for use in Fiji, but didn't get credit. The moth was declared extinct in 2021.

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8313785... #4159 - Rhomphaea sp. - Stretched Thief Spider From the Thracian rhomphaía for long sword (or polearm).

Solitary spiders that use aggressive mimicry to lure other spiders close, then throw a triangular web over them. The genus is found worldwide and has at least 39 species. Foxes Lair, Narrogin, Western Australia.

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8313645... #4158 - Gastrolobium parviflorum - Box Poison ‘small-flowered belly-pod’ Originally described as Oxylobium parviflorum by George Bentham in 1839.

One of Western Australia’s many deadly Poison Peas, who somehow strip enough fluorine from our fluorine-deficient soil to kill. At least, kill any herbivores that haven’t evolved here and can choke down the stuff without apparent ill effect.

Endemic to WA, growing in sand & gravelly soils, sometimes over laterite or granite (gravelly sand over laterite, here) and on undulating plains, most often in the Wheatbelt, Goldfields, and SE. Foxes Lair, Narrogin, Western Australia

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8313576... #4158 - Colepia ingloria Finally got an ID on this large robber fly I collected in Woy Woy, NSW, 30 years ago. Unfortunately it and the entirety of my collection was destroyed by carpet beetles a few years ago. :( Endemic to the east coast of Australia.

drhoz.tumblr.com/post/8313505... #4157 - Parakeelya calyptrata - Pink Purslane A mere 9 and a half months after we get back from New Zealand, and I’ve finally finished writing up all the species we saw there (barring any mysteries I get IDs for in future, of course).

'Parakeelya with a cap’ - from the Guyani language barrgilya, used to describe these succulent edible plants from the drier parts of Australia. The ‘cap’ is the persistent sepals attached around the seed capsules as they develop.

@paulandstorm.bsky.social

Originally described by Joseph Dalton Hooker in 1840, as Calandrinia calyptrata. AKA Rumicastrum calyptratum. Widespread across the southern half of Australia, usually in semi-arid areas. Foxes Lair, Narrogin, Western Australia

So now I can catch up on everything from Western Australia that I’ve seen over the last 9 and a half months. And species from before that that i’ve only just got IDs on now.’

Drhoz reposted

Paul and Storm

23h

[P] The Montresor at the End of This Book

Jason Takes Man-Adams@jamnpp.bsky.social

Why does this Sesame Street toy look like Grover is reenacting Poe's The Cask of Amontillado