Ants Killer Assassin Bug - Catasphactes coprias
Family Reduviidae
This page contains pictures and information about Ants Killer Assassin Bugs that we found in the Brisbane area, Queensland, Australia.
- Body length 10mm
- This small assassin big is golden yellow in colours with black head and thorax. The scutellum and membrane part of the wings are black. All legs are also black. Unlike the closely related genus Trachylestes, its pronotum is smooth without tubercles or bristles.
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- We saw this assassin bug once landed on a spider web and it walked slowly but comfortably on the web, as shown in the above picture.
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- We saw this assassin bug the first time in Karawatha Forest during mid summer 2007. It landed on a gum tree trunk with line of small black ants. It quickly punched on two ants with its sharp proboscis and flied away.
- In Jan 2008, we found them again on a gum tree trunk. There were two of them. We found them on Sep 2008 as well.
- This bug is active flier. They hunt actively by flying from plants to plants. We sometimes saw them hunting in small group. We saw the small group check every leave on plants.
- We found the above assassin bug in Karawatha Forest. This assassin Bug is relatively small in size. It was resting on leaf. We took off and flied away after we took to photos.
- Reference:
- 1. coprias Stål, 1863 Catasphactes Reduviidae TYPUS - Swedish Museum of Natural History, 2007.
- 2. A revision of the genus Catasphactes Stål with the description of two new species (Heteroptera: Reduviidae: Harpactorinae) - M B Malipatil, John Wainer, Australian Journal of Entomology (2005) 44, 392–399.
