Insects
Scale insects & mealybugs (Hemiptera, Coccoidea)
Sighting 3377776

Cryptes baccatus

Wattle Tick Scale at Gundaroo, NSW

Cryptes baccatus at Gundaroo, NSW - 5 Oct 2014 07:12 AM
Cryptes baccatus at Gundaroo, NSW - 5 Oct 2014 07:12 AM
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Identification history

Cryptes baccatus 21 Jun 2017 MichaelMulvaney
Cryptes baccatus 21 Jun 2017 Heino
Badhamia sp. 15 Jun 2017 MaartjeSevenster
Unverified 15 Jun 2017 MaartjeSevenster

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User's notes

I think this is Badhamia ?

4 comments

KenT wrote:
   16 Jun 2017
I think the ants tending the white globes is the clue here. Badhamia is a slime mould genus which doesn't look quite right in the context presented here. The white things look like one of the scale insects (perhaps a species of Eriococcus?) and the ants are coming to their secretions.
MaartjeSevenster wrote:
   17 Jun 2017
That may very well be right - I came across Badhamia as a tentative identification ages ago and recall that the ants seemed to make sense then but I now can't find anything suggesting ants would like it.
Heino wrote:
   21 Jun 2017
Further to Ken's comment, on page 135 of Roger Farrow's 'Insects of south-eastern Australia' I found a photo of ants attending Cryptes baccatu, a scale that looks like the subject of this sighting and then found several sightings of this scale species on Canberra Nature Map.
KimPullen wrote:
   1 Jul 2017
The ants by the way are Meat ants, Iridomyrmex purpureus.

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