Now that I am back on the blog, let’s reintroduce the Friday Beetle!
Enjoying a snack break along a trail one morning in Uganda’s Kibale forest, I looked up to see a bizarre creature peering over the top of a leaf. I’d never seen anything like it. The animal was strange enough that I dropped my chocolate granola bar to take some close-in photographs. Mouthparts like a stag beetle, antennae like a weevil, and a body shaped like a tube. The ungainly animal was also covered in little mites.
Online resources for tropical beetle identification are sparse to non-existent. I am 95% confident this is a weevil in the cosmopolitan family Brentidae, however, and I suspect it *might* be Bolbocranius. If any of you recognize him, though, please drop a note in the comments.
photo details:
Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon EOS 7D
ISO 400, F/13, 1/125 sec
Diffuse off-camera flash
That is one gorgeous weevil.
The upside of such Coleoptera–amazing diversity.
The downside of such Coleoptera–amazing, mind-boggling, daunting diversity.
And that you have to become an expert in botany to study so many of them.
Give me ants–moderate diversity, from herbivores to predators–but something an ecologist can grok.
And a world-class photographer devoted to their study.
Viva Myrmecos!
There is something luminously gorgeous about these photo’s, especially that lateral view ….
Outstanding images, Alex.
Wow, that is an amazing beetle!
Not your classic brentid—nevertheless it’s a dead ringer for the male in these photos of B. bicolor from Ghana so I’d say your safe at least to genus.
Spectacular lighting as always!
It is indeed a male Bolbocranius bicolor Senna, 1898, known from all tropical Africa.
Thanks to all of you who helped with the ID- I’m comfortable with Bolbocranius for the identification- it’s quite an odd beast.