CLOSED: What is this strange insect.

While surveying plants in Wilsons Promontory National Park in Victoria, Australia, someone drew my attention to this very strange insect, sitting still on the blade of a sedge leaf (Lepidosperma concavum). It has me completely baffled! I cannot even get as far as the order it belongs to. At first sight it looks like a larval form, but it has well developed antennae and most larvae don't have obvious antennae. That leads me to think it may be a flightless female of some sort. I know several moth species have flightless females, but I just can't visualise this as a moth. It looks (and feels) leathery and is almost hairless, there is a fuzz of short hairs on its rear end.

Can anybody tell me where to look to ID this strange creature? It is about 13 mm long and the head end is on the right.

Kennedy

Here is another view of my mystery beast

and here it is from underneath (holding on tight to its leaf)

Boy, oh boy - I knew the Land of Oz had its share of strange critters, but I've never seen a match for this one! At first glance, it appears beetle-like, but I can see no trace of an elytral suture, and the tarsi do not look right. It may turn out to be a heteropteran of some sort, but then, I've never seen a member of that group with antennae like your specimen has. Also, it might help if the eyes and mouthparts could be seen. When I have a bit of time, I'll do more digging on this - it has me intrigued...

Thanks for trying suunto, I have managed to solve it. I was in the Melbourne Museum insect collection yesterday and I managed to track it down (with help of an expert). It goes by the startling common name of Bird of Paradise Fly, being named for the quite beautiful male, although it is not a fly at all. It is called Callipappus rubiginosus and was originally placed in the family Coccidae among the scale insects and mealybugs. That family was then divided and it was moved to the family Margarodidae and more recently still that family was split again and it is now placed in the family Callipappidae.

The creature I found is the adult female, and it has no mouth parts at all. It crawls out of the ground where as a juvenile it fed on the roots of its host plant, and then sits on a vertical surface, in this case the leaf of a sedge and waits for a passing male, before laying its eggs. More information here: http://www.sel.barc.usda.gov/scalekeys/ScaleFamilies/key/Scale%20Families/Media/Html/ScaleFamilies/Families/Callipapidae/Callippappus.html

Kennedy

What a strange and wonderful creature! Good work in running it down!!

Usually at least one of you will have an idea as to where to start.

What an occasion to have an insect that stumped you both!