Wildflower Walk, Landsborough 3:30pm - 5:00pm / Wednesday the 27th of July, 2022

Our equipment included our trusty beat sheets, a water net & bucket, torches, magnifying glasses
and collection jars.

Our Bug Clubbers have been doing a great job this winter finding bugs. Bugs don't really love cold weather so they are much harder to find because depending on what type of bug they are they will either * migrate to a warmer location * go into diapause which is a dormant state * die and leave their eggs, larvae, pupae or nymphs behind and complete their lifecycle when the weather warms up or * hibernate.
When they go into diapause they find shelter from the cold by burrowing underground or hide in tree trunks or under rocks to escape the cold weather and emerge when the climate warms. Some animals like long lived tarantulas will hibernate by producing a sort of antifreeze chemical in their body that slows them down and helps them survive.

iNaturalist confirmed observations included : Striped Pond Skater (Genus Limnogonus), Stick Mantis (Archimantis latistyla), Bromocoris souefi, Yabby (Cherax depressus), Caddisfly (Order Trichoptera), Green Jumping Spider (Mopsus Mormon), Square-ended Crab Spider (Genus Sidymella)

We are still waiting on confirmed identifications of what iNaturalist "guessed" as a Raspy Cricket (Family Gryllacrididae), Leafcurling Sac Spider (Genus Clubiona), Translucent Cicada (Subfamily Cicadinae), Genus Balta (Cockroach), a Jumping Spider (Subfamily Salticinae) and finally a spider which could be a Tree-wolf Fishing Spider or a Megadolomedes trux.

Keep up the great work and we will be rewarded with Spring fast approaching.

Sunshine Coast Biocontrol Facility, Glenview - 3:30pm - 5pm - 24th August, 2022

This week we had a "Bug Lab" at our facility. We used an amazing microscope which projects onto a computer screen to get a closer look at the Insects, Arachnids and even Gastropods (snails and slugs) that we found.

Our Bugclubbers were very good at finding a wide variety of specimens for us to look at and then release. We used beat sheets, looked under rotting logs and leaf litter and also checked a couple of pitfall traps that had been setup earlier. We are finding more insects as spring approaches and they start to emerge from their winter hiding places.

We found a few Rhinoceros beetle larvae and the undescribed beetle larvae (Genus Meracantha). These larvae will soon be little beetles which will be roaming and flying about pollinating springtime flowers.

An Assassin Bug was also found. They are ambush predators and use their proboscis to impale prey and inject saliva which turns the prey's body contents to liquid. They then suck up the juices through the proboscis, which acts like a straw. (Queensland Museum). There are more than 300 species of Australian Assassin Bugs and many of them have a nasty bite, so make sure you never pick one up just in case!

Keep checking back on our Bug Club Project to see if some of our unidentified observations have been identified.