Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I found these yesterday in the garden, they are really small and 8 of them were on the leaf of a glossy abelia. Four were on the top side and 4 were underneath, then I noticed the egg cases underneath the stem. I had never seen anything like them before, any ideas anyone? The temperature here was about 35 degrees celcius.

Ahh yes, these bugs are: Cool :-)
Pretty little things, I hope they're aggressive carnivorous things... be a pity to have to remove such pretty bugs.
I really like their orange banded antennae.

I found some too faye, didn't find any eggs though. Was actually hoping you'd know what they were!

Look like some form of weevil,
might be an idea to get a few samples and check with local "experts", possibly museum.

H.

Any idea what these are? They're about 2mm long, and attacking the leaves of my zucchini. I'm currently manually removing them, but I think they're winning. Any thoughts on how to beat them?

While I'm at it, thought I'd show you these, and make sure they're the friends I think they are

try again

I just noticed the orange ladybeetle is no friend of mine! Just caught it eating a tendril on the zucchini vine. May it rest in peace...

the orange ladybird is an Epilachninae species, they eat plants. The fuzzy little guys could be Epilachninae larvae...

IMG_1275 is a praying mantis, great at eating insects, definitely a friend.
try here http://www.geocities.com/brisbane_ladybirds/index.html
for the other one...

On NYE the biggest mantis I've ever seen, (about 100mm long) landed on the table as we were having some after BBQ drinks.
He's now in the reptile tank, he's so cool... but he eats a lot... I'm yet to see him kill a cricket though. Oh and he can Fly! I never knew that! He's got huge wings!
DW hasn't named him yet, which is strange.

you need to come to the tropics to see some REALLY big bugs 100mm praying mantis *phft*

I know, I've been, but 100mm in Melbourne? I thought that kind of size was restricted to stick insects and other creatures north of the border. Surprised the hell out of me with it's size.

On a separate note, I'm in NZ at the moment, Christchurch, and bumblebees are SOO COOOL! they're HUGE and slow, and dopey cute :-) I'm really wishing I brought a camera on this trip

Yes Ryan, the 28 spotted lady bird is a pest
http://www.greenharvest.com.au/pestcont ... intro.html

For quick & easy identification purposes, you count the spots on one side and multiply by 2

OK, I know I know, it's blurry, but I don't have a fancy camera, and he didn't stop!

OK, well he looks like a bee, in that he's big insect with an orange thorax and a striped abdomen, and he likes visiting flowers.
However, different to a honey bee in that:

He never stopped flying even when sampling flowers.
He acted like a hover fly except he was 7 mm in diameter.
He hovered and flitted from place to place where he would hover for a second or so then flit somewhere else. I noticed him cos he made a HEAP of wing noise whilst doing this.
He had a Black and White striped abdomen, not black and yellow/orange

So... anybody know this critter? about the only thing you can see clearly is the black and white striped abdomen, but I tried. I don't think it's worth entering into the photo comp, unless we've gone impressionist here too

Just looked through my 15000 photos to find this one Kuda. It was taken at the BYAP display centre 22.11.08 according to my records. I was in the garden and I heard a bzz bzz bzz so I focused my eyes and then he was gone again. Just happened to have my camera on me (for a change) must have gone for the sport setting on this one, cause he was really fast. Appears to be a native bee, they are solitary and not as active as the honey bee. The native bee lives alone and lives in the soil to the best of my knowledge.