Medlar Comfits: Remains of a Christmas beetle

27 November 2006

Remains of a Christmas beetle

This is the time of year when, if you see a jewel, it's likely to be a beetle, or what's left of one.

There is a great richness of beetles here in southeast Australia, and many emerge now.

This scarab is a type of Christmas beetle (Anoplognathus) of which there are so many species in New South Wales that Chris Reid and Kindi Smith, of the Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Research, Australian Museum, Sydney have produced an illustrated guide.

Ants do a marvellous job eating out the soft flesh of insects.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...: Aw!

Growing up (North Queensland), it was always a delight to 'find the first Christmas beetle'.

Seeing the first Christmas beetle with his guts eaten out, why, it just isn't cricket.

;)

Thank you for your striking photos, Anna!; 28 November 2006 at 22:15
anna tambour said...: Sorry for the unfair play, Deborah. You force me to be a thorough bounder now. This wasn't the first Christmas beetle I saw this year. That singularity went to the one I felt under my heel, too late.; 29 November 2006 at 17:24

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