Tortoise Beetle

Thx again Jakbubko. It's important to put names to spottings and I was impressed that the Noah community responded to my incorrect identification so quickly! I have not been on Noah for some time. We completed our own Citizen Science website - www.Bowerbird.org.au released a few months ago. BB demands a little more structure than Noah and so far has attracted many people with Identification skills to help put names to sightings posted to projects. It also has map tools and a timeline etc. From BB we are now building a specific tool for professionals, farmers, inspectors and consultants in agriculture to create their own diagnostic networks. The concept of community and sharing in a digitall space is very powerful, as Noah has shown. Regards GK

Deloyala guttata is not found in Australia, although Aspidomorpha deusta is. I cannot see a map on your spotting, but when I search for it it says it was from Australia.

I truly agree with you martini.

GK, it does seem that lots of species don't get identified because people don't know. Many members simply enjoy showing pics, getting comments and seeing pics of creatures around the world. Entertainment is a large factor in the social networking community and correct ID is less important to many that it is to you and I. Noah may need to be reinvented or modified somehow to adapt this wealth of spottings in such a way to be useful to the scientific community. Until then I doubt that we adequately pass your test.

Martin thx for the comment. I knew this wasnt a bug but was testing the Noah process. I work on the PaDIL website ( www.padil.gov.au) and we r building a citizen science space called Bowerbird.. I wonder about improving the process for identification accuracy in citizen science data sets. There seems to be an awful lot posted with a small proportion identified and even less of these verified. Maybe that's not the point right now but the next iteration of sites like Noah should consider that much of the power of the site is lost unless the data can be value added. Cheers GK

Lovely spot!

Beautiful beetle.
Please consider this may be a tortoise beetle (Chrysomelidae) from the tribe (?) Cassidae. Beetles have biting mouthparts as seen on this amusing tortoise beetle http://www.flickr.com/photos/rundstedt/4... and bugs (all hemiptera ) have sucking and piercing mouthparts. Your beetle has its body fully covered with elytra, a feature never found in bugs.