beetledude's Favorites

Utricularia

In farm dam. Plants free-floating. Numerous traps on leaves. In some cases there are air-bubbles in the traps - this may be an artifact of handling after collection. Traps lateral on leaf segments - not confined to axils. Trap mouth naked or only with a few sparse branches. No flowers seen.
Thanks to Ian & Rob who collected the plant.

Mawdsley's review separates from ralphi by size (and characters of the end of the male elytra; which I cannot make out here); the last joint of my thumb is 35mm long, and the beetle, frons to tip of elytra, is close enough to that that it must comfortably exceed the 20mm threshold between the two species.

Plant whose flower is getting munched should be some sort of hibiscus, I think.

Potter wasp building and populating a nest

Watched for about 15 minutes as this wasp built, then fetched sand, built again and fetched more sand. Went back the following day and the little pottery studio was built. Went back again six days later and there was a "baby" in the studio.

Wasp around 25mm - 28mm in length. Black with reddish front legs.

Ploughed sand on the edge of the estuary

Large stretches of the intertidal sand along the margins of the estuary disturbed when exposed during low tide. On very close observation showed the digging was being done by a multitude of tiny (4 to 5 mm long) sand coloured crickets. They were very skittish and jumped as soon as disturbed.

See plant https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/202180222
See larvae https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/202180221
See beetle https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/202180228
See pupa https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/202180225
See black stuff https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/202180229