reptilia888's Favorites

Baleine échouée en juin 1992 à l'embouchure de la rivière Box. Partie supérieure du crâne avec le rostre récupéré par la pourvoirie Safari le 26 juillet 1998. Exposé à Rivière au Saumon (Mer), camp principal de la pourvoirie Safari Anticosti.

Huge (> 3 cm long); found while excavating ant nest in sand of vegetated red dune. Field number NAM2011-296. See also https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/142126927, found at the same site and smaller than this individual. Photographed by Duncan Robertson.

Larva of a nymphid lacewing Osmylops species. Identification thanks to Tim New. This larva turned up in some leaf-litter during a search for spiders as part of our Bush Blitz of Flinders Island in March 2014. Although tiny, it would eventually grown into quite a monster, and with those jaws would be a formidable predator of ants, though it's not a true ant-lion in the strict sense of the word.

Resting on an understorey plant. At a quick glance, I initially thought it was a bird dropping. The white hairs give it the appearance of being infected with an entomopathogenic fungi, maybe as a deterrent to predators...? Definitely the most amazing cerambycid I've ever seen!

Update: this species finally has a name! The paper naming and describing it can be freely downloaded from here: https://doi.org/10.54102/ajt.iv1x5