#uranquinty

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#3396 - Prionyx globosus

A grasshopper-hunter with silvery fuzz, found over much of Australia.

Uranquinty, 2013, NSW

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#2850 - Hylaeus nubilosus - Cloudy Masked Bee

A plasterer bee native to the eastern States of Australia, but now recorded from several suburban sites in the Perth region. It prefers to build its own cells within abandoned mud-dauber and potter wasp nests.

Uranquinty, NSW.

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#2847 - Anastatus sp.

Tiny ant-like Eupelmid wasps, found worldwide (except Antarctica, as usual), quietly searching for insect eggs to parasitise. Some are very important biocontrol agents for major pests and invasive insect species, although, curiously, only male wasps hatch from the eggs of green vegetable bugs (Nezara viridula).

At least 27 species live in Australia.

The 39 genera of Eupelmids are most often parasitoids of beetle larvae, though many other hosts are attacked, including of course eggs, and spiders. Some are hyperparasites.

Uranquinty, NSW.

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#2145 - Tortula muralis - Wall Screw-Moss

The name literally means 'wall -twisted'.

A cosmopolitan species, very common in urban areas where it happily grows on brick and concrete, as well as elsewhere. Quite a good source of information on air pollution in cities, as it absorbs everything in the environment.

Uranquinty, NSW

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#2849 - Gastrocopta strangei

Found in the spoilheap of a Greenhead Pony Ant nest - just one species in an entire superfamily of tiny air-breathing snails - those are grains of sand around it.

Also known as Pupa strangei (Chrysalis Snails being the common name for some of the species in the superfamily), Australbinula strangeana, Gastrocopta strangeana, and Gyrodaria strangeana. I haven't been able to find out who 'Strange' was.

The genus Gastrocopta was first described by Thomas Vernon Wollaston in 1878, and now has over 100 known species - many long extinct, and particularly diverse in the Miocene of Europe. The entire family is now extinct in Europe since the Pleistocene, with a single exception in the Northern Caucasus. One Gastrocoptid, Dentisphaera maxema, is known only from caves in northern Vietnam. Some species live in deserts.

Wollaston himself (b.1822–d.1878) was an English entomologist and conchologist who wrote extensively about the beetles and land snails of Madeira and elsewhere, and whose book ‘On the Variation of Species,’ predated Darwin's paper on the ‘Origin of Species’ by three years. The two men were well acquainted, but Darwin had a lot of biologist friends - the infamous Richard Owen being the only notable exception.

Uranquinty, NSW.

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#2147 - Fam. Chloropidae - Frit Flies

Probably a Gaurax sp. A more distinctively coloured example of these tiny flies. See the post earlier for more information on the family.

Uranquinty, NSW

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#2152 - Auplopus sp.

Formerly Fabriogenia. The change was news to me.

A worldwide genus of spider wasps, that amputate the legs of their prey before carting them back to prepared cells. Commonly seen in Australia, exploring treetrunks and under loose bark, antennae waving wildly. There's at least one fly and one beetle that mimic the colours and behaviour, presumably for protection - spider wasp stings are notoriously painful.

Uranquinty, NSW

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#2153 - Anterhynchium nigrocinctum

A Potter Wasp found in much of the Australian mainland, but most of the records are from Victoria.

The genus is found in the Afrotropical, Indomalayan, Australian and Palearctic bioregions. Like most other potter wasps, Anterhynchium nigrocinctum is a solitary, excavating a nesting hole or using a pre-existing cavity in which to nest. The single egg in each cell is provisioned with paralysed caterpillars and other insects.

Although usually docile compared to social wasps, they'll still defend themselves by stinging with their modified ovipositor. Like some other Vespids, male Anterhynchium can produce a "pseudo-sting" with two sharp spines on either side of their genital, but the "sting" is venomless.

Uranquinty, NSW