The garden moth traps came good again, with three new for the year moths and three Black Sexton Beetles like the above ugly wotsit. Also managed to get an ID for one of the craneflies I posted yesterday (Rhipidia maculata) and added a spider from the garden. 300 up.
| Taxon | Vernacular | Date Added | |
| 300 | Philodromus cespitum | (spider) | 24/04/2013 |
| 299 | Rhipidia maculata | (fly) | 24/04/2013 |
| 298 | Orthosia gracilis | Powdered Quaker | 23/04/2013 |
| 297 | Lycia hirtaria | Brindled Beauty | 23/04/2013 |
| 296 | Caloptilia stigmatella | (micromoth) | 23/04/2013 |
| 295 | Nicrophorus humator | Black Sexton Beetle | 23/04/2013 |
Caloptilia stigmatella
This one was small ......
.... compared to this one.
Haven't noticed this massive size variance in Black Sexton Beetle before, as usually just get the odd one in the traps rather than three together.
Fantastic macro shot Mark, looks like its come str8 out of Starship Troopers.
ReplyDeleteI'd guess the little one developed on a dead mouse whereas the big one developed on a bigger mammal, or the little one had to share its carcass with too many other sextons. That's extreme size variation for a beetle but you see similar size variation in parasitic beetles such as Bombardiers, again presumably depending on the size of their host.
ReplyDeleteI'd guess the little one developed on a dead mouse whereas the big one developed on a bigger mammal, or the little one had to share its carcass with too many other sextons. That's extreme size variation for a beetle but you see similar size variation in parasitic beetles such as Bombardiers, again presumably depending on the size of their host.
ReplyDelete