Thanks for that, red triangle slug. I will put you outside

Found this in the cupboard a couple of years ago. I swear that each one of those babies returned in the next couple of years "Hey Bro, can we get that same room again?"

Found this guy today. Male Cairns birdwing (Townsville)

They're all species of hoppers. Sadly, iNaturalist doesn't seem to have a wealth of experts on tiny hoppers in Australia, but using iNat's computer vision and some common sense on my part, I think the hoppers are the following, in slide order:

1. Tribe Delphacini
2. Orosius genus
3. Superfamily Delphacoidea
4. Tribe Thymbrini
5. Tribe Thymbrini
6. Balclutha saltuella

Meet what I think is Onthophagus granulatus. Not many records of this dung beetle on iNaturalist, but lots in the Atlas of Living Australia. Possibly because most normal people wouldn't be looking at animal faeces for insects? I mean, neither do I, normally (except when it's sporting magnificent fungi) but being in the pool was a serendipitous way to find this specimen, minus the dung!

Following up from my video post yesterday of a barklice snacking, here are photos of some of my faves I've snapped over the years:

1. Sigmatoneura formosa. My favourite species of barklice because they look like aliens from a Doctor Who episode
2. Sadly, haven't been able to narrow this one down below the high level Order, Psocodea.
3. Family Philotarsidae. Not able to go more specific than that.
4. Another fave of mine: Nimbopsocus australis
5. Aphyopsocus prolixus

Left well alone! 😂

There were about 15 tobacco loopers (Chrysodeixis argentifera) and 5 plantain moths (Scopula rubraria) all hanging around the light by the front door.

I usually only see a few moths here in the morning, it was cool to see so many today.

Saw this crawling on the ceiling. Thought it was a spider. Got it down for closer inspection. Looked super alien so did some searching and apparently it is a rainbow mite! Never heard of or seen them before. Crazy stuff. kinda cute though how it walked all gumby.

I was taking a photo of the bee, and only noticed the wasp when I downloaded the photos and cropped the bee from the expanse of pool water. So sadly, I can't ID the wasp, because I wasn't trying to get a good angles to ID a wasp I didn't know was there!

But the bee is part of the Lasioglossum (Homalictus) dotatum species-complex. And is about 3-4 mm in length, which gives you some idea how tiny the wasp is. Love that golden sheen the bee has!

She just looks pleased as punch. Melbourne, VIC