Jewel beetle (Castiarina punctatosulcata)

About 14mm long.
Feeding on various flowers including a Daucus-like plant and some large Asteraceae.
Found in a local nature reserve.

comments (8)

WildFlower

Lion

How many species of this genus do you have? Posted 9 years ago
1. Ferdy Christant
  
  Lion
  
  lol, getting tired of species creation? Seriously, thank you for all that effort.
  
  @Mark: fantastic series, it makes one want to collect them all :) Posted 9 years ago
2. 1. WildFlower
    
    Lion
    
    Yep, have you seen the list of those species? There's about 500 of them and only 3 Wiki pages...
    I think you should be giving Mark the right to create his own species records soon. Posted 9 years ago
  2. 1. Ferdy Christant
      
      Lion
      
      That's a great idea. Since he will be reading this....
      
      Mark, how about we promote you to moderator? This way you get access to the species management system, which allows for all kinds of power-user actions, such as creating species manually when there is no Wikipedia page.
      
      You have proven yourself to be very knowledgeable and caring about species, so we'll gladly give you those rights. Posted 9 years ago
    2. 1. Mark Ridgway
        
        Lion
        
        (Ha ha).. So sorry WildFlower but thanks so much for the work. I'm glad you've seen the lists. Incredible aren't they. These (Castiarina) are specialists on just a single type of plant.. so many more plants and probably so many beetles undescribed yet. Fortunately some (professional) friends are trying to sort out as many unknown beetles as possible so finding ID isn't as bad as it might be. Ferdy I'll be glad to help with moderating especially as our Aussie stuff might sometimes be an onerous task. Thanks and let me know if there's guidelines etc. you want me to study. Posted 9 years ago
      2. Ferdy Christant
        
        Lion
        
        It is good work for us to do, it means our species set is growing :)
        
        You've been promoted to moderator status as of now. If all went well, you should now see a little eye icon in the footer of the site, click on it to access the moderator dashboard.
        
        There, each action that you're now allowed is explained. When creating new species, please do read the instructions on the sidebar of that form carefully, it's a delicate process.
        
        Thank you very much for helping out, and please do let me know if anything is unclear. Posted 9 years ago
3. Mark Ridgway
  
  Lion
  
  Yes WildFlower.. hundreds I think and many yet to be named. One of the best things is they all appear around the same time on a sea of white flowering plants, all about waist to eye level. As the species all intermingle you can imagine the colours squirming in and out of the flowers. A dream to photograph. Maybe next year and a good cam. The only down side is it's always very warm and very much in snake territory. :-/ Posted 9 years ago, modified 9 years ago
4. 1. morpheme
    
    Lion
    
    eek.. time to invest in some snake prof boots…. (and maybe the chaps too) Posted 9 years ago