The Flatidae

Flatidae

Every so often the taxonomists get it right. The Flatidae is aptly named because they are, or most of them are. These small mostly greenish bugs are related to leafhoppers. They are members of the superfamily Fulgoroidea. This is a diverse group—really; more than 10,000 species are known worldwide.

Flatids visit the lights regularly and as with most of these sorts of insects, they are rarely seen during the day unless you happen to be looking in the right place. They are plant feeders, sucking the juices of certain trees and shrubs. The Australian species can be identified by using the very “user-friendly” key provided by Murray Fletcher. In fact, this is the reason for this blog. The key can be used to identify the families, and many species, of the Australian Fulgoriodea. We need more keys like this one. Up close, they are delightful insects and well worth a bit of time taken to identify them.


Paradaksha meeki Distant is known from northern Australia and New Guinea and is one of the larger species, measuring about 14 mm from head to tail. A beaut species only rarely seen at the lights.

Euphanta munda (Walker) is one of 5 species known from Australia. The genus is a northern one with species known from Nerw Guinea, Fiji and Indonesia. This one measures about 7 mm.




Siphanta is the largest known flatid genus in Australia with some 40 or more species known. So it's not surprising to find several in the Kuranda region. Determining their host plants would be the next step in attempting to understand their biology. Siphanta species are also found in the Philippines and eastwards to Hawaii. It appears that some species have been introduced through commerce to California. Siphanta galeata Kirkaldy is one of the larger species in the genus, measuring about 9 mm. It is known only from northern Queensland. The brown spots seem to be distinctive.

The Green Planthopper, Siphanta acuta (Walker) is a widespread species known from all over Australia as well as California, Hawaii and South Africa.

Geraldtonia protea Distant is the largest flatid we have around Kuranda. It is a giant measuring some 18 mm. Males have the dark spot that helps to camouflage it a bit, giving the impression of an imperfect leaf. Females are usually uniformly green. I see only 2-3 a year on the light sheet.

Not all flatids are flat in the sense of being laterally compressed. There are some that are dorso-ventrally flattened.

Uxantis comprises 15 species from northern Australia to the Philippines. Two species occur in Australia. This is probably U. consputa Stal. It is rather common but seasonal with most specimens coming at the end of the wet season, that is, late March.


Masilla sp. must spend the day resting on trunks or branches where they would blend in with the lichens and algae. Four species are known and this is probably the commonest, M. sicca Walker.

The Hercules Moth

Adult female Hercules Moth

The Hercules Moth Coscinocera hercules (Misk.) is the largest and among the most spectacular of Australian rainforest moths. It is a common visitor to lights in the eastern tropics and always attracts attention because of its large size. Females are larger than males and live longer than the one or two days that the males do. Males exist only to mate and then they are done. Most don't survive longer than the first night. They are easy prey for a variety of predators. The most common predator at my lights is the Black Butcher Bird that comes along on first light to check the sheet for goodies. The moths seem to come to the lights on cooler nights in spring and summer.

Peter Shanahan took some great photos of the large larva of this moth recently prompting this post. The larvae feed on a large number of common rainforest trees and, therefore, the species itself is quite common.

(Peter Shanahan photo)
(Peter Shanahan photo)

A Couple of neat moths

A Couple of neat moths

Murdock de Baar recently published notes on the biology of two rainforest moths in the Australian Entomologist. Both moths occur in the Kuranda rainforest as noted below.
Bracca rotundata (Butler) appears at the light sheet nearly every night. It is a geometrid with a wingspan of around 50 mm but for some reason does not look much like a geometrid. It usually rests quietly and remains well after the lights go off in the morning. It must be distasteful to birds and lizards because the moths often remain on the sheet throughout the day even though honeyeaters and other small birds continually visit the smorgasbord of small insects. De Baar reports that the larva (caterpillar) of B. rotundata was found on the rainforest vine, Austrobaileya scandans and were brightly coloured black and white and brilliant orange. It would seem that they are aposematically coloured and distasteful to birds as the adults seem to be. Buck Richardson has used this moth in his Mobile moth Mandela #2.

Bracca rotundata

The Large Leaf Moth Oxycophina theorina has a different story. This moth is a member of the Thyrididae, a diverse family with some destructive species. O. theorina rarely comes to our lights. It is a little smaller than Bracca but much more robust. We would average no more than two per year. De Baar found them feeding on street plantings of Macarangia tanarius in Normanton, Qld., a locale far-removed from rainforest. M. tanarius is a rainforest primary understorey tree. The caterpillars feed inside the stems of the trees and cause damage.

Oxycophina theorina

Reference
de Baar, M. 2008. Life history notes on Bracca rotundata (Butler) (Lepidoptera: Geometridae) and Oxycophina theorina (Meyrick) (Lepidoptera: Thyrididae) Australian Entomologist, 35: 141-143.

Recent books

A plethora of books dealing with the north-east rainforests have hit the markets recently and I thought it might be of interest to some of our international readers to learn about them.


Stick insects (Walking sticks in the US & Canada) are a prominent component of the Australian Insect fauna. Some 150 species have been described and it is expected that around 200 will be the total once the fauna is better known. But why stick insects? Well they are very prominent members of the insect community. They range in size from some species that are only a few centimetres long to others that are well over 12 cm in length. They are popular pets, especially in the UK & Europe where they have popularised by the Phasmid Study Group, a club with members of all ages and from all professions that have been hooked by the appeal of keeping and breeding these insects. A number of Australian sticks have made it to the hobbyists overseas. The most popular is Macleay's Spectre, Extatosoma tiaratum, a spectacular species well illustrated and discussed in the book. The book is a guide to identification and is written in a popular style that will appeal to anyone who wants to know more about these insects. There are chapters on rearing and keeping these insects as well as how to photograph them.


Michael Cermak is an excellent photographer and if you are interested in snakes, this book is a must. Published by CSIRO Publishing, it is a wonderful photographic essay of Australian snakes, their behaviour and habits. Many Australian snakes are fearsome and dangerous. To the credit of the author, this fact is not overemphasized. The beauty and place of these snakes in their environment, their strategies for survival and hopes for the future make interesting reading.


Many visotors come from overseas to see the Great Barrier Reef off Cairns, in northern Queensland, but only a minute percentage of them get into the Cape York peninsula much beyond Cooktown. Reasons for this are simple. Beyond Cooktown there are few paved roads and the main roads are off-limits during the rainy season. So special effort need be made to visit this remote part of Australia. This book will probably do a lot to encourage folk to make the extra effort to visit Cape York. The writing of Robert Heinsohn and the photographs of Michael Cermak combine to produce a splendid book that should be of interst to Australians and foreign visitors alike. Anyone fascinated by nature will want this book published by CSIRO Publishing.


For people living in the northern wet tropics of Australia, this book is a must. We probably have around 15-20 species of frog in the Kuranda area and to have a book dedicated to the identification of these amphibians is most helpful. There is a key, excellent photographs and copious notes on ecology and behaviour.


This book was published a year or so ago but it is most worthwhile to note it here because it may not be generally seen on the overseas market. Published by the Museum of Victoria, the book is a must for any individual, museum or zoo that wants to keep and cultivate invertebrates. The authors are in charge of the Museum's live exhibits and have successfully kept everything from ants to water beetles. They have set out the care guides in an easy to understand way with plenty of photos and drawings. You'll learn about special temperature, humidity, foods and lighting requirements of each species they deal with. They have chapters on how to make an attractive terrarium and how to display your captive creatures. This is a quality book of international standards and will captivate not only to those who want to observe invertebrates alive, but to the general public as well.

Green Tree Frog

The Green Tree Frog

Meet Litoria caerulea (White), the Green Tree Frog. (Listen to the call of this frog at the website).This is one of the most commonly encountered frogs that a visitor is likely to meet. Many introductions to this species are fraught with anxiety because of the odd habits of this frog. Nearly every outback public toilet has these creatures living within. That’s not so unusual but to have them living in the toilet cistern is a bit off-putting to the uninitiated visitor to say the least. The frogs crouch under the toilet seat or under the rim of the toilet bowl, often in considerable numbers. If it was a small frog, one might overlook the experience. But this is a large frog, often getting to 100 mm in length. They are persistent and won’t budge. So when the perplexed human uses the toilet the next worry is "What if it jumps up while I’m in the middle of.....". And then "What happens if I flush"? Well the frogs usually stay put and don’t jump while you are in the midst of... And when you flush, they just swim around the bowl and almost never go down the drain. And if they do, they seem to crawl back and assume their perching under the rim. They will be there the next time you need to use the toilet--if you ever need to again!

In some public toilets I have seen multiple species in this role. It’s great for a frog. They have fresh water-eventually and the toilets are usually lit at night providing a great source of snacks.

But this poor frog was photographed near our garage. Normally these frogs are grass green but this one is sick. It is off-colour. Note the “wound” between the right fore leg and the right hind leg. This is probably the exit site of a fly parasite, Batrachomyia sp. There are many species in this genus that parasitise a number of Australian frogs. The little fly on top of the Orange-eyed Frog below is one of these flies. They are members of a fairly large and diverse family, the Chloropidae. In other parts of the world they are usually detritus feeders but a parasitic habit has evolved in Australia. This just adds to the problems that Australian frogs are undergoing at present. It would be of interest to report that the flies parasitise the introduced Cane Toad, Bufo marinus, but this seems not to be the case.

Northern Stony-creek Frog

Northern Stony-creek Frog Litoria jungguy

Stony-creek Frogs are actually a complex of closely related species separated from L. lesueuri that differ genetically from one another, (Hoskin & Hero, 2008). They are not that easy to distinguish in the field. L. jungguy and L. wilcox are the ones easily confused in the Kuranda area. L. jungguy is more often found in rainforests so it seems likely that this is the one illustrated here.

The Northern Stony-creek Frog is fairly common on the ground on wet nights. It is frequently seen around the lights where it captures small insects. It can be fairly large- 39-71 mm but this is a small individual. These frogs sit motionless on the ground for long periods. All you can observe moving is the sides of the thorax as the frog breathes. I’ve always thought they are sitting ducks for hungry Cane Toads, Bufo marinus, that are in the same habitat, only more numerous. Although the Stony-creek frogs are excellent jumpers, attaining more than 1 metre with a single hop, once the Cane Toad has grasped one, there is little chance for escape.

The Northern Stony-Creek Frog lays hundreds of eggs along the shores of rainforest streams between August and May.

Reference
Hoskin, C., Hero, J.-M. 2008. Rainforest Frogs of the Wet Tropics North-east Australia.
Griffith University. Gold Coast, Australia. Pp. 1-89.

The Orange-eyed (or thighed) Treefrog

The recent deluge has brought havoc to the human community but there are some that find it a delight. With each downpour it seems a different frog species is activated into breeding behaviour.

Meet the Orange-eyed Treefrog, Litoria xanthomera, length about 50 mm. This little frog shows up after heavy rains at this time of year and forms rather noisy choruses along ditches well away from streams at night. Listen to the call of this frog. But look carefully. You'll see a tiny fly parasite biting the frog as it vocalises in the rain.