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Project Noah Nature School
Ptinus sp.
An orangey-brown beetle about 3mm long with a broad black band on its elytra. the margins of the band had white dots. The femurs appeared to have a white patch near the tibial end. What looks like a black head might be the thorax ( head tucked under ?). It had long beaded antennae.
out by the back garden.
This little guy moved so fast that getting any detail was difficult. My thanks to thaptor for helping me with an ID, 4 years from when this little beetle was spotted.
Both adults and larvae feed on dried foods - grain & fruit.
Family: Anobiidae
Subfamily: Ptininae
This kind of beetles often live in leaf litter, especially if contains small pieces of dead wood.
If you pass such material through a spagetthi sieve, or sieve out the larger particles with your fingers when litter is in a bucket, you will more easily find them.
Thanks Stephen and Boris. As it is the same time of year (and roughly similar recent climate) we will search for another now.
Tried a 1911 key, with no clear result. Close to the description of P. medioglaber, though.
http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/...
This is certainly a ptinine, but not Ptinus speciosus, which is endemic to N.Z. (http://www.nzor.org.nz/names/2da2f80f-29...) and not present in Australia (no record here https://biodiversity.org.au/afd/taxa/Pti...). The ALA record linked to above appears to be a messed up mishmash of species from both Australia and N.Z.!
Have a new idea - call for help! I post this as a link to a NZ pal - he will know.
Ah 4 years later and despite such a bad photo I get help at last ! Thank you so very much Boris. I will keep looking for pics of this genus.
It's certainly weird to see such long orange setae on some of them.
The NZ Ptinus speciosus is as colourful as yours - and it is listed for Australia:
http://bie.ala.org.au/species/urn:lsid:b...
I just don't remember the pattern of the specimen I have once seen, but I recall part of it was made by swirled pubescence, strongly reflective in orange.
....maybe what I thought was the head is actually the thorax?? The head might be tucked under. Sorry I could not get any side shots.
That was also my first guess, but I did not find a reasonable match to get deeper. The ones I saw had a longer body. Perhaps a Chrysocleridae ;-)...
So glad you said that bayucca. We've been discussing exactly it for hours :)
Strange beetle. I am a little bit confused about the large head and head/body proportions.
Spotted on Nov 1, 2012
Submitted on Nov 3, 2012
