Can anybody help identify this insect, which I found under a leaf in a peat swamp in northern Johor? I can't even tell which order it belongs to!
The creature is slightly less than an inch long. The fore to hindwing size ratio (I now realise I have been focusing on the bug's backside instead) seems quite unusual, while the wing alignment and positioning as really bizarre. In the first picture, it also appears as if the second pair of legs is positioned in front of the first pair. Should I also mention that the enlarged thorax and minute head abdomen reminds me of a duck?
[Experts tell me it's a bug in the family Derbidae]
It seems to me a Planthopper (Auchenorrhyncha, Hemiptera). I wish I could see its head clearly, which seems unusually shaped. It may just be large antennae. Still it's unusual for a Planthopper to have large ones.
I enjoy your site. Please kindly let me know if you ever identify this bug, or got more pictures of it.
Posted by: Kazu Inoue | 11 June 2006 at 09:58 PM
Somebody identified it as Proutista moesta (Derbidae). I couldn't get a good shot at the head as it kept showing me its backside.
Posted by: budak | 11 June 2006 at 10:05 PM
It could just be an illusion the fly has mastered to aid it's escape. Flies move backward first when they take off, so perhaps this insect's predators are keen to approach from the rear and he's just found a way to fool them into giving him 2 advantages: He can see them coming, and he has a better chance of an uninterrupted lift-off. It rather looks like a wild-fly (as opposed to a house-fly)
Posted by: Cody Curtin | 18 March 2008 at 04:54 PM