Insects
Sawflies (Hymenoptera, Symphyta)
Sighting 4204086

Polyclonus atratus

1 A sawfly at Dunlop, ACT

Polyclonus atratus at Dunlop, ACT - 17 Mar 2019 02:42 PM
Polyclonus atratus at Dunlop, ACT - 17 Mar 2019 02:42 PM
Polyclonus atratus at Dunlop, ACT - 17 Mar 2019 02:42 PM
Polyclonus atratus at Dunlop, ACT - 17 Mar 2019 02:42 PM
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Identification history

Polyclonus atratus 23 Mar 2019 KimPullen
Polyclonus atratus 19 Mar 2019 KimPullen
Pergidae sp. (family) 19 Mar 2019 CathB

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4 comments

KimPullen wrote:
   20 Mar 2019
My grounds for suggesting this is Polyclonus (Pergidae: Euryinae) are circumstantial, as I have not seen an identified specimen or captioned image. The small size and body proportions suggest Euryinae; Naumann et al. 1991 (Hymenoptera in 'The insects of Australia', p.935) say 'males of Polyclonus have feather-like antennae'; and P. atratus (the only species in the genus) is recorded from the ACT in AFD.
CathB wrote:
   21 Mar 2019
This looks rather like these, although they are all much further north
http://www.bowerbird.org.au/observations/123976
http://www.bowerbird.org.au/observations/91818
https://lifeunseen.smugmug.com/Insects/Bees-Wasps-Sawflies-order-Hyme/Sawflies-suborder-Symphyta/Subfamily-Styracotechyinae/i-cq4tvn2
KimPullen wrote:
   21 Mar 2019
A figure at https://pergidae.snsb-zsm.de/morphology shows a male antenna of Styracotechyinae (containing only Styracotechys) to be bipectinate, and the image of a male Styracotechys dicelysma at https://pergidae.snsb-zsm.de/adults also shows this. I looked at the URLs you cite, and only Bowerbird #91818 appears to have bipectinate antennae, so it is possible the other two are misidentified. Unfortunately, the characters used to distinguish Euryinae (e.g. Polyclonus) and Styracotechyinae (Styracotechys only) in the Naumann et al. 1991 key are not visible in CNM sighting #4204086.
KimPullen wrote:
   24 Mar 2019
Sawfly expert Dr Stefan Schmidt of Zoologische Staatssammlung München (Bavarian State Collection of Zoology) has confirmed this as Polyclonus atratus, mainly based on the unipectinate antennae (teeth of comb in one row). This suggests that some of the other images online are misidentified.

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Location information

Sighting information

Additional information

  • On Lomandra leaf Associated plant
  • 5mm to 12mm Animal size

Species information

  • Polyclonus atratus Scientific name
  • A sawfly Common name
  • Not Sensitive
  • Rare or uncommon native
  • Non-invasive or negligible
  • Up to 798.1m Recorded at altitude
  • Machine learning
  • External link More information

Record quality

  • Images or audio
  • More than one media file
  • Verified by an expert moderator
  • Nearby sighting(s) of same species
  • GPS evidence of location
  • Description
  • Additional attributes
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