matthew_connors 的最愛

Okay I'm preeeeeeetty sure that this is an Austroscolia that's covered in pollen. Certainly looks like pollen, and I can't recall a scoliid with a yellow thorax. Everyone IDs things as A. soror, but is that correct? How do we tell?? To the literature!
There's a revision of some species here including the original description of A. commixta. It is also jet black but has markedly shorter antennae, "about as ong as the thorax and median segment combined", and is known from Darwin. Perhaps this is A. commixta? Certainly looks like it.

What about A. nitida? The name suggests that it is also black. The taxonomy is.... somewhat confusing, going by this paper. Our subspecies is A. n. varifrons, so it may be easier to find information on that than on the species itself. The description is here and for me the easiest distinction between this and A. soror is that the foretibial spurs are reddish brown rather than black. Well, I assume A. soror has them black because mine has them black (I think..... it's kind of difficult to see. Maybe mine are reddish. Ugh. Okay let me finish this thought and I'll come back to it). So that seems to be correct. I'm sure that there are plenty of structural differences as well but I am simply not waspy enough to understand them, so I'm sticking with the spurs.

Okay but I should look at A. soror too, shouldn't I. Especially seeing as I'm not sure how dark the spurs should be. I can't really see mine very well but the more I look the more not-quite-entirely-black they look. The description is here (as Scolia cyanipennis). Aaaaaaaand of course it also has lighter coloured foretibial spurs, apparently yellow. Well that's no help. So what exactly are the differences??

Okay okay after some scrutiny I think I have found it. A. n. varifrons has the "pronotum and mesothorax strongly and closely puntured" and the abdomen "almost uniformly, closely puntured". A. soror has the mesothorax and scutellum more sparsely punctured, and the abdomen shining (so I assume not so puntured). Looking through some sightings it seems that this difference is quite obvious. E.g. here is A. soror from Vic: Really quite different to mine. Note though that the antennae on this one are very short. Is this a sex difference? I sure hope so, otherwise everyone is wrong. Wikipedia says that yes, males have significantly longer antennae than females, so that's good. But then maybe we can't tell A. commixta apart all that easily unless we know the sex.

One of the papers linked above also lists reported ranges. A. commixta has been recorded only in NT. A. n. varifrons is known from NSW, Qld, NT, New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands. A. soror is known from Vic, NSW, Qld, and New Guinea. So I think around Victoria we can be pretty sure of A. soror, but everywhere else the sightings require closer scrutiny. No species has been recorded from SA but there are only a few records from the east of the state that I assume are referrable to A. soror. However, the WA records will require some close inspection. Lots of things are showing up in WA these days so I think it could equally well be A. soror or A. n. varifrons. Less likely is that it's A. commixta or even something undescribed.

So in conclusion, Austroscolia is more complicated than we thought. Definitely doable, but requires more scrutiny than most give it.

Unfortunately I only have the one photo of this largeish fish as it was very fast and I didn't get a good look at it. My impression upon seeing it swim off in the shallows was something flathead-like, but I can find no fish that matches the image with a distinct black spot in the tail and mostly plain body. Does anybody have any suggestions?

Branching Fire Coral - Millepora dichotoma
Identified as Anthoathecata on Bowerbird by Matthew Connors: "Millepora dichotoma (Milleporidae) - for some reason the entire family is missing from Bowerbird"