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Ectocnemus decimmaculatus
A large straight-snouted (Brentidae) weevil is being dragged away by an army of green ants.
Found on the handrail of a boardwalk in the Kuranda rainforest
Thank you Bayucca for assisting to ID the weevil. The green ants are weaver ants (Ecophylla smaragdina) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oecophylla_...
Ma Sha Allah ..... those green are seriously beautiful... i hav never seen the such b4
Thanks for your detailed analysis professor bayucca.
I believe ozanimals and Aust.Insect Farm (facebook) are the same company but have two names for the same beetle. Then it easily gets copied by people like us. Thank you.
Isthenus sp.
http://www.papua-insects.nl/insect%20ord...
Looks for me complitely different.
This one and the other ones from my Papua links look being trustable:
http://www.papua-insects.nl/insect%20ord...
In my eyes also wrong ID from Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Brenti...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ithystenus
The facebook one is this one:
http://www.ozinsects.com/brentidae.php
In my eyes wrong ID!
I am bothered by some references to Ithystenus hollandiae here;
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=...
What do you think?
Yes the green ants are VERY common and weave foliage to make their nest. I will make a spotting for them later.
Thank you bayucca
I will go with your spelling.
I have loaded this into Bowerbird, an Australian site motivated to feed field data onto an image library, (ALA = atlas of living Australia) Its database uses your preferred spelling. See http://www.bowerbird.org.au/observations...
The ants look like being Oecophylla smaragdina, a weaver ant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oecophylla_...
Misspelling?? Really Ectocnemus or Ectocemus?. Please, verify the correct name!
http://www.discoverlife.org/mp/20q?searc...
http://www.papua-insects.nl/insect%20ord...
http://www.papua-insects.nl/insect%20ord...
I in the meanwhile think it is actually Ectocemus decemmaculatus.
Brentidae, Brentinae?, Ectocnemus decimmaculatus.
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/CURCULLIONIDA...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/31914013@N0...
http://www.insects-more.de/beetles/mount...
With misspelling!
http://bie.ala.org.au/species/urn:lsid:b...
Thanks Lauren. I didn't rescue this one ;(
Nice Stephen. This beetle looks the same. The location is very nearby; maybe the same handrail. He is a better photographer than me (in fact it's an excellent photo) but neither of us have an ID
Love those green ants!! Never seen them before, thank you for sharing, martinl.