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Ant mimicking earwig


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#1 Offline ponerinecat - Posted July 29 2019 - 1:04 PM

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While in China, me and my cousin, who is primarily interested in coleoptera and lepidoptera, stumbled upon an earwig. Or rather, the earwig stumbled upon us. We instantly noticed something strange. The cerci would snap together and open, much like a trap jaw ant. The cerci were also very oddly shaped. That's when I realized it was a trap jaw mimic! The upper body was gray and had a fuzzy surface to break the outline. This concealed the upper half. The lower half had a head like end where the cerci grew from. There were red bulges mimicking were the antennae would have grown from. Smaller black bulges to the side mimicked eyes. This genus is extremely uncommon, and I couldn't find any results for it with Bing. I have since forgotten the name, but I know it starts with "c". My cousin sent the specimen to a friend of his who studies dermapterans.

 

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looks quite like a trap jaw from behind

 

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it would raise the cerci above the body threateningly when held.

 

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the trap jaw it's mimicking, found on the same mountain

 

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#2 Offline ponerinecat - Posted July 29 2019 - 1:14 PM

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Anyone who knows about dermaptera, could you ID this?



#3 Offline ponerinecat - Posted July 29 2019 - 1:43 PM

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Got it. Challia sp. Google is better than Bing.


Likely Challia fletcheri.



#4 Offline Acutus - Posted July 29 2019 - 2:22 PM

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Pretty cool earwig for sure.

Billy

 

Currently keeping:

Camponotus chromaiodes

Camponotus castaneus

Formica subsericea





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