Alien Bug

Found this guy on the side of the house it was just a hollow shell and looked like something out of Aliens. It even looks like its ribs are coming out of the hole in its back.

Looks like Scarabus Crappus, the common dung-beetle.

G

Too be honest George i dont know what it is But you could be right.

Scarabus Crappus sounds like a name for our next super hero

I'm right (I think) about the dung-beetle, but the Latin name may not be the official one!
Nothing too super about this one. His powers seem to have deserted him at a critical moment.

The ancient Egyptians believed that the Earth was a giant ball of ordure, and that its rotation was caused by a giant dung-beetle, rolling it along the highways of space.

After ten years of Tony Blair, I'm beginning to have some sympathy for their point of view.

G

Actually, after some further research (read: googling), I am not so sure. It appears that there are an awful lot of beetles that look like this, and not all have slung dung.

G

You have my curiosity piqued and i will endeavour to find out what it is

Don't know what beetle but they might be fungal filaments coming out of it's back.

I'm getting a strong sense of Deja Vu, has something like this been done before?

What do you mean by Done before : :

It's very much like a Dragonfly exuviae, which is when a dragonfly larva emerges from the water, crawls onto a handy perch or surface, and then bursts out of it's skin to reveal the adult, flying version. Not sure what other insects do this, whether any beetles do something similar.

The 'ribs', 'fungal filaments' etc are tubes which go from the external skin, which has been left behind, into the spiracles on the body inside. This is how the insect breaths. When the old skin is left behind these tubes are withdrawn from the spiracles and then look like this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exuvia

As far as the 'Alien' reference is concerned, the Alien from the film is partly based on dragonfly larvae, the way the jaw opens up and prey is grabbed by nasty shooty out bit is how it is at the bottom of a pond...

Dan

As I was typing up my reply I was sure I'd written something similar here, but can't find it. Anyway, it felt very familiar.

just to get a sense of scale - how big was the "alien bug"

It would have been about 30mm long

George: It turns out that it is a Double Drummer Cicada popular in Aust and the US

Are you sure? I don't think that picture is conclusive.

G

Well i was fairly sure And i could find nothing else that remotely resembled it.