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Project Noah Nature School
Megacyllene proxima
Anyway, it is extremely gratifying to know that my photos are useful to scholars. This has always been one of the guiding principles of my work, the other is to show to those that live in other countries some of the enormous biodiversity we have here. I'll try to provide you many more photos.
Part of the problem is that Brazil has made it impossible for entomologists to collect in Brazil. This drives up demand for such insects by amateur collectors.
One of the reasons it is so hard to provide you with species IDs is that those of us working outside of your country know very little about what is actually living there. This is why I love looking at your photos, it's a glimpse into a world I wouldn't get to see otherwise. I've never bought an insect from a dealer, and some aren't very careful about their taxonomy, so it's hard to rely on their identifications. The side view I found was from a natural history museum's flicker page. Their beetle was collected in Bolivia, so the chances of it being the same as yours are very good.
We have problems in our country with people who collect wild reptiles for the pet trade (which is illegal here). We also intercept live insects that get smuggled into the united states from tropical regions for the exotic pet trade.
You see, Oxyjack, one extreme situation lead to an extreme decision. An incredible amount of brazilian species were registered in USA and european countries, and all products that come from them would have to pay royalties to be sold in those countries! The export ban was an attempt to change this situation.
Thank you very much, Oxyjack. That commerce is something that bothers me. A couple months ago, a dealer was arrested at the Rio de Janeiro airport, with a lot of butterflies and moths in the luggage. And some were really rare!
Here's a side view from another site: https://secure.flickr.com/photos/nhm_bee...
I think I found it! An insect dealer in Germany is selling long-horned beetles from South America. Yours looks exactly like one identified as Megacyllene proxima: http://www.insectdealer.de/suedamerikabo...
A long-horned beetle (Cerambycidae). It looks similar to species in the genus Clytus, but they usually have different yellow barring patterns. Not sure about the species.
Spotted on Mar 20, 2012
Submitted on Mar 20, 2012
