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October 30 2023: Darling Range flora, “up close” (#17 in series)

 

This post’s six-legged hero is not a Christmas beetle, and the flower which s/he is targeting (and, thereby, probably pollinating) is one of several related “devils”.

These handicaps notwithstanding, “handsome beetle + star-shaped flower head” yields a “Christmassy” image…however accidentally!

Insect-wise, you are looking at a member of a large, globally “cosmopolitan” family which has many genera.

Lycidae – known as “lycid beetles”, or “net-winged” beetles – are toxic/offensive to most predators.

Their appearance “advertises” their inedibility.

Natural selection has ensured that not a few entirely-other, eminently-edible beetles seek “protection” by aping lycid beetles’ “look”.

Australia is home to more than 200 known and named lycid beetle species, most of which are nectar feeders.

 

 

Lycid beetle on blue devil, in wandoo woodland. Circa 100 ks se of Perth CBD, 11.36 am, 30 October 2023. Photos copyright Doug Spencer.

 

 

 

Plant-wise, our hero is one of more than 250 species in the genus Eryngium.

Just seven known/named Eryngium species are endemic to Australia.

Collectively, these hardy annuals grow across much of Oz.

More than one species’ members are known as “blue devils”.

I am almost sure that the pictured “blue devil” is Eryngium pinnatifidum.

This species is endemic to southwest Western Australia, only.

In 2015 it was one of four WA-endemic flowering species to appear on a postage stamp.

Click this to see this particular blue devil’s range.

 

Published in nature and travel photographs Western Australia