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a small unidentified dark blue metallic beetle
Spotted on vegetation along a transect in secondary coastal lowland mixed freshwater swamp forest/sago swamp forest.
I agree in Altica sp. - looks like one.
Species ID, in this genus, is done by genitalia etc . . .
Thanks Ashish. Even though there is some good resemblance, I have only found scientific records for that species in southeastern Australia (see http://bie.ala.org.au/species/Altica+pag... ). All 3 PN Australia records are from that part of Australia. If this species occurs in northern equatorial Papua (my spotting), I would have expected records from northern Australia. I did not see it on Brisbane insects. The other 2 PN records show Korea but those two spottings clearly feature different species...So I'll leave this pending for now.
Spotted on Jun 14, 2012
Submitted on Jun 19, 2012
+1
