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Empty caterpillar skins fixed in weirdly contorted positions on a twig of eucalyptus. Skins seem mostly complete with most hairs still in place.They might have been hollowed out by a parasitic arthropod like a wasp or fly larva or maybe a fungi like cordyceps. Victims were about 15mm long.
On a sapling in a local nature reserve.
Yet to search for similar... or work out exactly what's going on. Could be multiple vectors?
2 Comments
I thought that white thing was just a blurry hair and my bad photo. 8-] ...Ok swapping missions from APBOA to APBF... although it seems strange that they would end up so hollow with so few external signs if it's a fungi ..maybe a bit of both?
Mark, the cat in the third photo looks like infested by a fungus. The large, white thing in its head has a very caracteristic shape.