Giant Jewel Beetle
S1, Male, profile
Giant Jewel Beetle
S3, Female, profile
| Giant Jewel Beetle S1, Male, profile | | Giant Jewel Beetle S3, Female, profile | | ||
 | Class: | Animals (Animalia) - Jointed Legs (Arthropoda) - Insects (Insecta) | |||
| Order: | Beetles (Coleoptera) | ||||
| Family: | Jewel Beetle (Buprestidae) iNaturalist Observation | ||||
| Species: | Giant Jewel Beetle (Temognatha heros) | ||||
| This Photo: | 🔍S2, Male, profile🔎 | ||||
| Other names: | Large Jewel Beetle or Yellow Jewel Beetle | ||||
Thank you Martin Lagerwey, Mark Hura, Joshua Gan, Patrick Wake & Paul M Hutchinson for confirming the id of this species for us General Species Information: Found on Ellura (in the Murray Mallee, SA) and elsewhere Males we found were ~45-50mm long, while the female was ~54mm long. A huge beetle, the biggest we've ever seen. They are reported to be up to 60 - 80mm long. The female seemed to have slightly smaller antennae segments. Males have a darker patch on the front of the their pronotum; but we didn't find this very obvious. It's interesting to note there are no obvious ocelli, yet they fly extremely well. Notice the asymmetric venation in the elytra of S2 & S5. We noted the front edge of the elytra on the males we found was quite angular; while on the one female was rounded. We thought this might be a gender variation. We discussed this with Peter Lang, who kindly examined 10 female & 10 male specimens and conclude "that the male/female difference you noted on the margin of the elytron (= 'epipleuron') was just an individual variant."; as all but one female he examined also had the angular 'epipleuron' (along with all males). We also learnt a new term for the front margin of the elytron | |||||
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