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| 1 | 2 |  » Stats |
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11-09-2008, 07:09 PM
|  | Commander of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: South Northants
Posts: 3,289
| | | Unusual flying insect cleaning wings with abdomen
Stony Stratford, Bucks. On wooden fence-post near large pond.
This was altogether an odd looking insect (IMO anyway). It's wing cases seem surprisingly short for the length of it's wings (I also have a pic with the wings folded away).
The insect spent a good couple of minutes cleaning it's wings by arching it's abdomen (as in pic 2) and running the abdomen across it's wings (or maybe it's wings over it's abdomen?). It would have been helpful to have made a video of this as it was difficult to exactly work out the action.
Help with identification appreciated as always.  
Bruce 
Last edited by Bruce Williams; 11-09-2008 at 07:12 PM.
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11-09-2008, 07:11 PM
|  | Knight Grand Cross of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: North Yorkshire
Posts: 10,729
| | | Re: Unusual flying insect cleaning wings with abdomen
Its a Rove beetle Staphylinidae, not sure which. |
11-09-2008, 07:54 PM
| | Member of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Jun 2007
Posts: 381
| | | Re: Unusual flying insect cleaning wings with abdomen
Certainly is - it looks like a Xantholinus or Gyrohypnus. The shape, punctures on the head and the form of the antennae all point in that direction. They are great photographs.
Like most Staphylinidae they are really hard to do without killing, mounting and pulling the private parts out.
Regards
Jon |
12-09-2008, 01:47 AM
|  | Commander of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: On the edge of Romney Marsh, Kent
Posts: 1,178
| | | Re: Unusual flying insect cleaning wings with abdomen
Ouch!!! Jon !!!! 
Naturegirl
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12-09-2008, 03:58 AM
|  | Knight Commander of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: N.E.SOMERSET
Posts: 9,044
| | | Re: Unusual flying insect cleaning wings with abdomen
Nice picture, these often land on me when I sit out reading
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12-09-2008, 07:54 AM
|  | Knight Commander of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Sheffield, FPRSY
Posts: 7,655
| | | Re: Unusual flying insect cleaning wings with abdomen
What it's doing, most likely, is not cleaning its wings but packing them away after flight. Those winged beetles which have full elytra only have to fold them lengthways. In the case of staphylinids, with their very short elytra, it's much more complex and requires help from other parts of the body - and the mechanism varies between genera. See the tenth video here - http://nhm.ku.edu/ksem/projects/vide...es/video1.html Earwig Wings! on Flickr - Photo Sharing! shows the pivot points about which some staphs fold their wings. |
12-09-2008, 09:10 AM
| | Commander of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: South Northants
Posts: 3,289
| | | Re: Unusual flying insect cleaning wings with abdomen
Thanks everone for your interest and help with identification.
Having now viewed the video recommended by Paul (his first link) I can confidently say that the recorded abdomen and wing action is almost identical to the action I observed with my beetle - so wing folding not wing cleaning it is!
Bruce |
12-09-2008, 09:12 AM
|  | Commander of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 1,238
| | | Re: Unusual flying insect cleaning wings with abdomen
Packing these wings away is akin to origami, which brought to mind the astonishing work of Robert Lang, unfortunately he does not seem to have done a Staphylinid.
Sorry to drift off-topic. |
12-09-2008, 02:39 PM
| | Commander of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: South Northants
Posts: 3,289
| | | Re: Unusual flying insect cleaning wings with abdomen
poschiavanus - That's an absolutely amazing website. I had no idea that origami could be so incredibly lifelike.
Bruce | | |
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