What are these? Anyone got an idea?

[AlanMM]

Hello,

I found this during a hiking trip in canaima national park in Venezuela.
Anyone got an idea what these are?

I only found 2 of them, sitting on the same tree.

 

[P.jasonius]

WOW! I've never seen anything like that, and I've read alot of 'bug' books.

 

[SouthernStyle]

I dunno~ But judging by the look of 'em, I wouldnt mess with whatever it is...Maybe some kinda Moth/Butterfly/Wasp Cross?? ::shrugs::
Nasty lookin bug though!

 

[P.jasonius]

What kind of appendages are on its mouth? If its tubular it may be homoptera of some kind.

 

[Galapoheros]

I agree with P.jasonius. Not a moth. Homoptera. Prob a species of trop leafhopper.

 

[bugmankeith]

Looks like some sort of leafhopper, you can see the long mouth part.

 

[P.jasonius]

I agree, in the top pic the face is very cicada like, though very exotic. Doesn't have the leg structure congruent with leaf hoppers, though. Homoptera of some sort. Did you get any more shots of these? More in the way of the head region? I'm not up on my Lepidoptera identification, but the lack of notable antennae leads me away from thinking it is a moth. Maybe this spp doesn't need them with pheromone producers of that caliber. Those babies are enough to make me... oh wait what am I saying!

 

[bugmankeith]

The reason I say leafhopper is because I once saw an article in a magazine showing a picture of a rare tropical leafhopper species that had those white appendages, it reminded me of fireworks on the 4th of July!.

 

[KennyGee]

You might wanna try sending these in to a museum or a science department. Who knows you might just of discoverd a new speicies.

 

[lucanidae]

Coremata!

I got it. The coremata is a paired organ known in Lepidoptera and especially in family Arctiidae, an exotic species of which you may have found. They are found in the males and excrete pheromones to attract females in a sex role reversal system. Males do not need antenna to find females, and are non-feeding which explains the mouthparts.

 

[Mr. Mordax]

I've done enough volunteer bug-IDing to order that we can rest assured it's homoptera (or at least NOT a moth -- no scales on the wings). Give me a few seconds of creative image-searching . . . The fillaments suggest maybe a type of scale insect. I know that some are capable of flight in the adult stages of one sex.

Nothing yet. I'll keep looking.

 

[lucanidae]

Here's a good paper on coremata:

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1283882

Even better it comes with a video of one inflating and deflating:

http://insectscience.org/5.1/ref/JIS_5.1.2005_Jordan.mpg

 

[Mr. Mordax]

From what I've been able to dig up, coremata occur in pairs and don't look anything like that. And if you look carefully in the first picture, you can see beak-like mouthparts (they appear between the hind legs at that angle), characteristic of homoptera and hemiptera.

 

[lucanidae]

I see the mouthparts, however I'm not convinced they aren't just vestigial non-feeding mouthparts seen in a lot of adults moths. Also, coremata are paired, but paired dosen't just mean two strands, it just means two mirror structures. I'm far from 100% on this, but knowning that small leps in the tropics are incredibly diverse and their pheromones systems to find mates must be just as diverse, I'll go with some weird microlep until something more convincing surfaces.

 

[Mr. Mordax]

I'm still searching through homoptera references . . . I'm sticking to it because those mouthparts look to be far from vestigal, and the wings don't appear to have scales on them.

 

[lucanidae]

I've been searching like crazy to find male accessory gland pheromone communication in Homopterans and have found several papers, none of which mention any sturcture like this. I'm with you on the wing scale thing, but a lot of microleps look nice and shiny and scaleless but really they just have lots of tiny scales.

 

[lucanidae]

I'd also like to know what the red phlanges on the head are.....

 

[Mr. Mordax]

Who knows . . . it might not be pheremones. But if we're both searching in different places, we're more likely to turn something up between us. Let's keep looking!

 

[Mr. Mordax]

I'm pretty sure the red things are its eyes (some insects have pretty bizzare-looking eyes).

 

[Mr. Mordax]

There's at least one homoptera with hairy stuff coming out its butt:

http://bugguide.net/node/view/4976/bgimage

I know the structure is different, but it's a start, and it's more similar than the moth pheremone thing.