Field of Science

Name the Bug # 23



Attribution to follow.

Update: Identity now available here. Figure from Roewer (1912).

6 comments:

  1. I'll have a stab at this.
    Obviously it is a harvestman (Opiliones)beyond that I'm a bit lost but the closest match that I can find is the family Craniadae, possibly genus Santineza.

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  2. Incorrect spelling: It must be family Cranaidae and genus Santinezia

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  3. No spines on eyemound = probably not a cranaid ;-). Indeed, that's a pretty low eyemound overall that animal's got (hint, hint).

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  4. Well since you say that, I'll have a guess at Stygnidae (I don't know enough about harvestmen to determine the height of an eyemound from a 2-D dorsal image).

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  5. Stygnids have the eyemound entirely dissociated. The true identity is available in the next post.

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  6. John D. Merritt, Taylorville Illinois18 April 2011 at 18:35

    I seen one of these sky blue and white. It had bulbous knobby joints and was very large. The largest insect I have ever seen. I was working dismantling a double wide modular home in an area outside of St. Louis in the Washington Park area, literally right on the Mississippi river. The insect was hanging upside down inbetween 2 floor joices and was so large that it not only filled the area between the joices but the bends of its legs were hanging atleast a couple inches below the bottoms of the them. I had crawled under the trailer to disconnect and cap a gas line when I spotted the arachnid. I stopped and looked and it for what seemed like a minute or more, because I had never seen any insect with such vivid coloring or of such enormous size. I was certain it had to be a toy or something I didn't exactly know what I was seeing, until it began to move its limbs and crawl. It would be an understatement to say I hastily retreated and I refused to go back under to do the job. It was that unbelievable. That was many years ago and I have spent a lot of time through out those years trying to research what I saw. This is the closest thing to it I have ever found, so just to ease my mind I'm going to settle on it being one of these, with some strange pigment mutation and grossly over sized. Fasinating it was, so much in fact I still think about it 17 years later. Was a beautiful yet frightning insect. Thanks!

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