Dark Blue Banksia Jewel Beetle - Cyrioides australis (Cyria australis)

Family Buprestidae

This page contains information and pictures about Dark Blue Banksia Jewel Beetles that we found in the Brisbane area, Queensland, Australia.


Body length 30mm

The jewel beetle is dark blue in colour. Its thorax and wing-covers is smooth and shiny. It has a pair of large eyes. Its head, abdomen and legs are the same dark blue colours but covered with short white hairs.

Species of Cyrioides are associated with the plant genus Banksia.

We met this beetle in the bushland in Burbank near Tingalpa Reservoir on Jan 2009.

The beetle was flying at about two meters above ground, then stopped and rested on a Tea-tree (Leptospermum sp.). It flied away after we took a few photos.

We verified the ID of this species with Mark Hanlon, Mark suggested we should have seen those jewel beetle sitting on host plant.



We returned to the bushland the next week end. Yes, we found those beetles sitting on the host plant leaves. Once we recognized the host plant, to find them became not too difficult. We found eight of them in one morning.

All of them are male. Female and male look very different. We try to find the female but we had no luck yet.



All the beetle we found were sitting on leaves, some were feeding on leaf and some were just sitting. We believed they were waiting for the females. The males were sitting about a meter to 1.5 meter about ground. The plant they sit on were young Banksia trees from 1.5 to 2 meters tall. Each of the male occupy one young tree, although we found once two males on one tree.

The beetles were very high alerted and ready to fly. When we came within a meter, they walk to the edge of leaf and flied away. They flied up to the sky and rest on another tree 10 to 20 meters away. They seemed will not return to the same tree once fly away.



At the base of some large Banksia tree trunks, we found some fleshly made holes. We were not sure if those beetles came out from those holes.

Coast Banksia

Banksia integrifolia

Reference:
1. Buprestidae: Cyria australis Boisduval - Insect Reference Collection Database - ICDB, Western Australian Department of Agriculture.
2. Cyrioides australis (Boisduval, 1835) - Australian Biological Resources Study, Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, 2008.
3. Beetles of South Australia, a guide to the Genera of, Part 4, E.G. Matthews, South Australia Museum, 1985, p4.
4. Wild Plants of Greater Brisbane - Queensland Museum, 2003, p133.