Metoligotoma sp. (genus)

2 Webspinner at Kambah, ACT

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Identification history

Metoligotoma sp. (genus)	7 Apr 2019	KimPullen
Embioptera sp. (order)	6 Feb 2019	KimPullen
Embioptera sp. (order)	6 Feb 2019	HarveyPerkins

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User's notes

This webspinner was found in the shower and had to be rescued. The photos were taken after drying it out a bit and before release. Body length would have been about 12 mm.

5 comments

HarveyPerkins wrote:

6 Feb 2019

I get inordinately excited by finding embiopterans. The only other one I've ever come across was in a shearwater burrow while I was surveying shearwater breeding success on Montague Island (now Barunguba) in March 2001. That specimen is somewhere in ANIC.

KimPullen wrote:

6 Feb 2019

Nice shots Harvey. You can really appreciate the expanded front tarsi that house the silk glands.

HarveyPerkins wrote:

8 Feb 2019

I've just added a close-up of the Terminalia. It's pretty clear that this is a male of the family Australembiidae, and almost certainly one of the Metoligotoma species

KimPullen wrote:

7 Apr 2019

ID by Harvey.

HarveyPerkins wrote:

8 Oct 2019

And based on distribution, most likely Metoligotoma ingens (as per Miller & Edgerly 2008 - Systematics and natural history of the Australian Genus Metoligotoma Davis (Embioptera:Australembidae). Invertebrate Systematics 22: 329-344.

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