#melyrid

[dreams-in-daylight]

Love when there’s a mystery bug in your home/on your houseplants, and you’re sus and want to look it up just to be sure, and it turns out to perfectly normal or even beneficial bug so you’re all

“Do please carry on my good sir”

[drhoz]

The Beetles on Tour

The most common beetles I saw in my grandparent's yard were the Paterson's Curse Weevil, the Striped Ladybeetle, andf the Red-and-Blue Pollen Beetle. By a happy coincidence, here's a leaf with all three (although by the time I had the camera set up, the ladybeetle had wandered around to the far side of the leaf, and is casting her shadow through it).

[drhoz]

Red-and-Blue Pollen Beetle, Dicranolaius bellulus

[drhoz]

#154 - Red-and-Blue Pollen Beetle

Dicranolaius bellulus, female.

Male - you can tell because of the expanded third segment of his antennae. These highly poisonous, red and metallic-blue Melyrid beetles, were absolutely swarming in my grandparent's yard in Uranquinty. They were even turning up inside the house. Most likely they were feeding on the pollen, like everything else, but they're also predatory, and may have been hunting for insect eggs, aphids, etc.

[drhoz]

#47 - Soft-wing Pollen Beetle EDIT: Aporocera sp.

Photo by me, for a change

EDIT: (Nov.2023) - Not a Dicranolaius - not even the same family. It’s an Aporocera sp. Leaf Beetle. At least I’m much better at IDing stuff than I was 10 years ago. 

*****

As far as I can tell, a female Pollen Beetle of the genus

Dicranolaius

, in the Malachiinae subfamily of the Melyridae. Probably not the

Red and Blue Pollen Beetle, D. bellulus

, and if actually a

Dicranolaius

, female because it lacks the

enlarged antenna segments of the male

. Lovely close-ups of a Red and Blue

here

.

Melyrids

are small predatory beetles that hunt small insects and pollen. The larvae are predatory too -

D. villosus

eats locusts egg pods. As you can probably guess by the colouration, poisonous. The mysterious inflatable organs this subfamily enjoy along the sides of their body are probably part of the defence system, but doesn't do them much good against poison arrow frogs and certain species of bird, who eat them for the

batrachotoxin

content and then use these EXTREMELY potent neurotoxins against their own predators. The

Hooded Pitohui

, for example, contains so much batrachotoxin in its feathers that merely handling it can make your hands go numb. And interestingly, enjoys the same colour scheme as the beetle in the photo above.

Photographed on the Marri bloodwood in my front yard, in Perth, Western Australia, while I was trying to find whatever had been doing the damage to the leaves in the background. I am

seriously

impressed by the macro setting on this Android phone.