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Dark brown, nearly black beetle, 11 mm head to end of abdomen, 16 mm tips of antennae to end of abdomen, with lighter-colored (dark yellow-brown), possibly translucent legs, antennae and mandibles.
Suburban area on tropical upland plateau.
Spotted, while minding my granddaughter, on a bedroom wall. (It's the tropics; critters inevitably find their way into one's residence.)
Spotted on May 21, 2015
Submitted on May 21, 2015
4 Comments
Ha! We let our mynahs do their own pulverising.
I was guessing family/genus based on physical structures and didn't search for a species match. Maybe a close other genus? You called it's bluff then :-)
Mark: P.S. The beetle in this spotting was pulverized (by me, by hand) and fed to a myna bird nestling which I'm trying to keep alive until it fledges. So what? What's that got to do with anything? The "what" is that if this is in fact a false blister beetle, it must not be one of the "many species [which] cause blisters when pinched or squashed against the skin". Six hours after I "pinched or squashed" this specimen, I've developed no blisters.
Reference: http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/urba...
Thanks Mark. Based on images I've found online, I think you're probably correct, and Oxycopis looks a good possibility. Although most Oxycopis images online seem to show dark head, red/orange thorax, dark abdomen (as opposed to this spotting: red/orange, dark, dark), some don't, e.g., Oxycopis mimetica, which in some images matches the coloration in this spotting. In addition, the length shown in one online image of Oxycopis mimetica is the same as the length of the specimen in this spotting.
Hi Allen. My guess is a 'false blister beetle' (Oedemeridae) Maybe Oxycopis genus or close.