Transparent Pie-dish Beetle
Profile
Transparent Pie-dish Beetle
"Fluff"
| Transparent Pie-dish Beetle Profile | | Transparent Pie-dish Beetle "Fluff" | | ||
 | Class: | Animals (Animalia) - Jointed Legs (Arthropoda) - Insects (Insecta) | |||
| Order: | Beetles (Coleoptera) | ||||
| Family: | Pie-dish Beetle (Tenebrionidae: Heleina) iNaturalist Observation | ||||
| Species: | Transparent Pie-dish Beetle (Helea castor) | ||||
| This Photo: | Horn | ||||
| Synonym: | Helaeus | ||||
Thank you Mark Hura for identifying this species for us General Species Information: Found on Ellura (in the Murray Mallee, SA) and elsewhere 1st Live Photo on-line: We have recently discovered the enclosed head is not a diagnostic feature of Helea sp. Notice how round this species is compared to the next (Helea waitei). It's quite unusual as it's brown plus has a transparent "shell". We're not sure if the "brown fluff" is just plain dirt, or possibly excreted by the beetle as camouflage. Another possibility is cobweb from a tiny spider This specimen was 22mm long including the flanges of the Elytra (rear shield / wing covers) and Prothorax (front shell), 18mm just the head & body without the shell. This specimen has 2 ridges starting at the front of the elytra stopping about 3/4's toward the rear, roughly where a 3rd middle ridge starts. | |||||
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