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Project Noah Nature School
Eriococcus coriaceus
A single eucalyptus branch (Eucalyptus microcarpa ?) over a length of 1 metre has rounded eggs or galls one end and fluffy white scaly things the other with a clear gap of about 75mm. No moving creatures found in the area.
Eucalyptus Ants actively protecting and farming these sacs.
Neither types have been seen before in this area.
Ants attending any hemipteran, including your leaf hoppers and your scale insects is expected. The pics #2 and #3 I have seen this before. I assumed this is the bases of the scales after they were eaten by something like a bird, reptile or mammal stripping and eating the insects like corn on the cob. This is similar to my spotting above of a larva eating most of each scale to get to the bug inside.
This is sending me crazy martinl. You wouldn't believe it but today that branch was clear but I found some (100?) of the sacs elsewhere being vigorously attended to by ants. The fluffy scaly stuff was nowhere to be seen. I'm putting an ant picture here. The only other thing happening on this tree is equally fascinating and I will do a new post for it. Thanks for the ID suggestion on this.
The scale insect lives inside these round sacs. I've spotted one being eaten by fly larva! AKA maggot. http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/791...
I've seen Icerya sp, that you mention, before. These don't look quite the same to me - but i am no expert! - maybe we should request more/clearer pics??
Spotted on Dec 21, 2011
Submitted on Dec 21, 2011
+1
