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Castiarina octomaculata
Beautiful little beetles which love to bury themselves into leptospermum flowers after they open. The size and colour resembles a (slightly elongated) ladybird. A second one seemed to have gold thorax and head (pic6). About 18mm long.
On Leptospermum continentale? in a local national park.
Ladybird mimic Jewel beetle (♀)?. These flowers are fairly short lived and therefore so is the appearance of these beetles. It was very satisfying to plan a day trip with them high on the list and then actually find them.
Although this plant species seemed to be prolific and flowering over a large area (1000m x 1000m?) these beetles were only found on the flowers in a tiny patch about (50m x 50m?)
http://bie.ala.org.au/species/Castiarina...
family: BUPRESTIDAE
subfamily: Buprestinae
tribe: Stigmoderini
subtribe: Stigmoderina
Spotted on Oct 11, 2014
Submitted on Oct 12, 2014
5 Comments
Nice one Mark.
Pretty close-ups, Mark!
Great shot Mark.
Yours is a female.
I saw the male today and will publish it later.
I saw the bee mimic too, only one.
Thanks Kathleen. :)
Congratulations on a lifer Mark! and a beautiful spotting too!