Red Eyes Bug
Nursery
Black-laced Planthopper
Dorsal
Animals
Plants
Info
| Red Eyes Bug Nursery | | Black-laced Planthopper Dorsal | | ||
Animals Plants Info |
 | Class: | Animals (Animalia) - Jointed Legs (Arthropoda) - Insects (Insecta) | ||||||||||||
| Order: | True Bugs (Hemiptera) | |||||||||||||
| Family: | Scentless Plant Bug (Coreoidea, Rhopalidae) iNaturalist Observation | |||||||||||||
| Species: | Red Eyes Bug (Leptocoris mitellatus)| This Photo: | 🔍Cannabalism🔎 | Thank you Danilo Lüdke (lehelind) & Karen Weaving for confirming the id of this species for us General Species Information: Found on Ellura (in the Murray Mallee, SA), the Flinders Ranges, the Riverland and elsewhere ~13mm long. A mainly dark grey bug with red/orange highlights. The instars are very orange/red. Apparantly they like dark moist places. They don't cause wood rot, but like to live in it. So finding them near a wooden dwelling is an indicator of a leaky roof. In very dry summer/autumn of 2025 they have been plaguing, so are everywhere regardless of damp/rotting wood. Thanks to Kristen Messenger who indicated to us she's seen them cannabalising each other, so we kept an eye out and within days found one doing just that! Genital examination is required to separate species within the genus. Accordings to Gross, "This is apparently the commonest of the Australian species and is the only species in Southern Australia." As such we have identified these to species based on location. On Atlas, SA Museum has since found Leptocoris tagalicus in SA, but they look different; they don't have any black on the body. Similar Species: Peaceful Seed Bug (Spilostethus pacificus)
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