#psocid

[onenicebugperday]

@feralbiologist submitted: I found a friend (well, several) on my plants! This is in Germany but I'm not sure whether they came in with some wood I used for decoration or whether they hitchhiked on some of my plants (some HC imports). They spin silk and seem to leave the plants be despite sitting on them. Some are winged and some not and they all move pretty slowly (yay for being able to catch them & take photos!) I'm thinking some sorta bark lice maybe?

(pls excuse the close-up of my hand/arm it did not want to stay on the nice white paper :))

The skin for scale makes it much more apparent how tiny this fella is! Very cute. It does indeed look like a psocid (bark/booklice) and some of them definitely can spin silk. This one looks like Ectopsocus sp.

[otaharuo]

ウスベニチャタテ、Amphipsocus japonicus、6月9日、岐阜県

[drhoz]

#1982 - Nimbopsocus australis - New Zealand Barklouse

Photo by @purrdence, in Te Whanganui-a-Tara (the Great Harbour of Tara), which is also known as Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand. Wellington is the southernmost capital city in the world, as well as the windiest, so having such a fantastic harbour was probably very fortunate.

AKA Psocus australis, Myopsocus australis, Myopsocus novaezealandiae, and Psocus zelandicus

Most psocids, like the Booklouse, live in damp environments, but the larger and often intricately marked barklice may be found living in groups on treetrunks and branches, grazing on lichen, fungi, pollen and algae. They have a soft body, long thin antennae, broad heads, biting jaws and bulbous eyes. Large species may be 1cm in length. Some species live in organized communities beneath a fine net spun from glands in their mouths.

Nimbopsocus australis also occurs in Australia, Lord Howe Island, Norfolk Island, the Kermadec Islands and the Solomons. They are large for psocids - around 6.0mm head to wingtip. Males are much smaller and darker than the females, who have a coarsely mottled wing pattern with a greater proportion of pale areas.

[onenicebugperday]

@midnightevermore submitted: Hi! So here's a lil bug I keep finding in my apartment (in Finland), they seem to be living mostly under skirting boards. Super tiny, like maybe the size of a poppy/chia seed, I think they have 3 leg pairs and antennae, doesn't seem to be able to fly but when you touch them they do jump, which sort of makes me nervous that these are lice or bed bugs? Hope the picture is sufficient even if it's not the best. Thank you for your help! x

It doesn’t look like a parasitic louse or bed bug, it looks like a booklouse. They can be common in houses, especially in damp areas. They’re harmless, despite having louse in the name :)

[drhoz]

#1847 - Clematostigma maculiceps

One of Australia’s wide range of really beautiful barklice. I’m amazed that I stumbled over an ID for this one - it’s a complicated Order, formerly Psocoptera, but now Psocodea since the True Lice turned out to be a specialised group within the Barklice, most closely related to the Booklice. 

The parasitic lice (formerly of the Order Phthiraptera) includes some 5,000 species of wingless ectoparasite, and the booklice (Liposcelidae) include some cosmopolitan household pests, but the barklice are harmless scavengers of  fungi, algae, lichen, and organic detritus. Some species can spin silk from glands in their mouth. 

[drhoz]

#3658 - Ectopsocus sp.

A large genus, most diverse in Asia, usually found in leaf litter and among dead leaves.

Naragebup - Rockingham Regional Environment Centre, Perth.

[drhoz]

#3096 - Fam. Caeciliusidae - Lizard Barklice 

Shaken off eucalypts in front of the hotel in Wongan Hills.

The Caeciliusidae was once named Caeciliidae, but was changed to avoid confusion with the legless amphibian family of the same name. There are at least 40 genera and 650 described species in family, which is widespread around the world.

Great Southern BioBlitz 2024, Wongan Hills

[drhoz]

#2838 - Order Psocoptera

An absolutely charming tiny Psocid at the visitors center. You may carry on.

OPERA, Otago Peninsula, Aotearoa New Zealand