Unusual Amyema, possible A.quandang X A.pendula hybrid? Has quality's of both species. Elongated and greener leaves than A.quandang. Buds and flowers are also longer although upright. The immediate area around this track junction has a high concentration of Grey Mistletoe and a few Drooping Mistletoe nearby. Found a number of these intermediate plants in this area on both Acacia mearnsii and Acacia melanoxylon.

Comparative images included. Image 3 showing buds. 4 showing leaves at growing end. 10 & 11 showing open flowers.

'Centurion' tree. Voucher observation D.Nicolle 6730.

Climbed height: 99.6 metres.
Crown spread: 18.0 metres average.
Trunk circ. at 1.4 m: 13.70 metres.

Mixed rainforest and E. regnans forest on moderately steep north-east slope.

Okay okay let's do some Calolampra stuff, because it seems that people have been taking my cockroach IDs and running with them without realising how many incredibly similar species there are. Before we even begin, here is a big disclaimer: Calolampra is a huge mess, and ALL species IDs should be considered tentative until a better revision is done (no offense to Roth & Princis buuuuuuuut I mean they didn't do a fantastic job did they...).

Anyway, this paper is our key resource. It indicates that there are 26 Australian species, although ALA lists 28, so we will have to work out where that discrepancy has come from.

Before looking at everything else, just a quick note on C. elegans - this is an aberrant and very pretty species known from only a single specimen collected in Peak Downs (QLD). The male is wingless (unique among Calolampra) and is boldly marked with black and yellow, rather like a Cosmozosteria:

So that one is clearly out. All the other species look more or less the same though unfortunately.

I figure the easiest way to begin is simply to list the species along with their recorded distributions, and then start ruling things out:

C. darlingtoni - NSW (Mt Kosciusko) and SA (Mt Lofty)

C. truncata - NSW (Sydney region)

C. ignota - southern WA and SA from around Esperance to beyond Adelaide

C. paula - inland WA, NT, QLD, and SA, as well as southern SA

C. candidula - north QLD (around Cairns and Mareeba) through to central QLD (Aramac) and northeastern SA

C. aspera - widespread in arid SA, as well as southern NT

C. subgracilis - southern VIC and southeast SA

C. confusa - unknown (no locality on the only known specimen)

C. fenestrata - coastal southeast QLD and NSW from around Brisbane to Sydney

C. signatura - introduced in Haiti and St Helena, probably from Australia, but no Australian specimens are so far known

C. atra - southeast SA

C. gracilis - southeast SA and mid-coastal NSW

C. marginalis - southwest WA, around Perth

C. solida - Peak Downs in central Queensland

C. irrorata - coastal QLD

C. mjoebergi - coastal QLD

C. propinqua - NSW and VIC

C. fraserensis - southern SA and WA

C. notabilis - VIC and southern SA

C. queenslandica - QLD (no exact locality on the only known specimen)

C. atomifera - southeast SA

C. obscura - northern WA and NT

C. insularis - Murray Island in the Torres Strait (QLD)

C. pernotabilis - southeast QLD

C. tepperi - Kangaroo Island in SA

The most important thing to note with these distributions is that they are conservative because they're based on limited specimens, but they generally give us a good idea of the probably distribution of a species. All of them are likely to be more widespread than stated, but the habitats that they are found in will likely be very similar. For example, it's very easy to believe that C. paula is also found in inland NSW despite there being no specimens from there, but at the same time it seems very unlikely that the species would be found in coastal NSW.

What about the discrepancies? Well ALA also lists C. depolita and C. fornicata. Roth & Princis suggest that C. depolita is probably a synonym of C. tepperi, and C. fornicata is listed as a synonym of C. irrorata in Cockroach Species File. With no further comment on either of them in the revision, I think I will leave them at that.

From the morphological side, there are a few useful snippets that we can use to easily ID some males. Specifically, males of C. darlingtoni have only vestigial tegmina, similar to the females, and males of C. truncata have shortened tegmina that reach only to about the hind margin of the second abdominal tergite. Take care in distinguishing male C. truncata from female Molytria though, which have wings of a similar length.

So for my Victorian ones, going by distribution we can fairly safely rule out everything except C. darlingtoni, C. subgracilis, C. atra, C. gracilis, C. notabilis, and C. propinqua. This of course has the obvious caveat that we don't actually know where C. confusa and C. signatura are from, but to me it's unlikely that it would be somewhere like Melbourne if there are no other records for the species.

Okay, so let's get into it then. I have three specimens to ID (one I have already IDed as C. propinqua but it will be good to double check that) from various spots. One is from Mt Macedon, another is from Burwood (this one), and the third is from Emerald. The Mt Macedon specimen is rather different from the others, but the other two are similar and could be the same species. All are females so we can't easily rule C. darlingtoni in or out unfortunately!

Let's look at the species one by one.

C. darlingtoni is rather similar to my Melbourne species but is clearly not the Mt Macedon one:

C. subgracilis is also somewhat similar to my Melbourne one (and again different to the Mt Macedon one) but seems to have fewer spots on the tegmen, and the description seems somewhat at odds - "Pronotum edged with brown, feebly so in front, but strongly laterally ... disk of pronotum ... so thickly speckled with black that the brownish ground color almost disappears ... hind margin ... provided with the usual black striae which are rather short and indistinct"

In fact though, looking at that description and again at my two similar Melbourne individuals, they seem to be rather different in these aspects. The Blackburn individual is rather unlike this, whereas the Emerald individual is very similar. The developing tegmina (it is not adult) are rather less spotted, the disk is very heavily marked with black, and the hind margin has somewhat indistinct stripes (especially given the age). So perhaps that one is C. subgracilis and the other is something else.

As the name suggests, C. atra is almost completely dark. It has pale margins on the thorax and abdomen, but there is little patterning of any kind on the abdomen:

So that one is out! It is very distinctive and there seem to be a few iNat sightings that I will add IDs to.

C. gracilis, alas we have no images of the female due to an editing error! Oh well. Here is the female description:

"Head generally as in male, but sometimes in dark individuals a blackish additional macula between interocellar area and clypeus present; face passing into o.cciput without angulation. Pronotum at most twice as broad as long, thickly speckled and dotted with dark brown (in dark individuals with blackish); disk with scattered impressed punctures; hind margin bearing a series of dark brown to blackish longitudinal striae; middle part of the hind margin weakly convex; lateral margins, not differentiated, but regularly arcuate with anterior margin; edging of lateral margins in dorsal aspect not lined brown inside; latero-caudal angles slightly produced backwards. Tegmina reduced to lateral lappets (Fig. I2) edging of their outer margins dark brown (even in dark individuals not black). Dorsum of abdomen thickly speckled and dotted with dark brown to blackish on yellowish ground. Supraanal plate yellowish, only weakly dotted with dark brown. Venter of abdomen dark brown to blackish with several reddish maculations. Legs yellowish brown with dark brown spines; lower posterior margin of front femora and same margin of posterior femora as in male. Length of body 8-2 mm; length of pronotum 5-5.5 mm; width of pronotum 8.5-8.8 mm; length of tegmina 3-4 mm."

So what of this is helpful? Well the tegmina are edged in dark brown on their outer margin, which is not the case with any of mine. So I think it is reasonable to exclude C. gracilis.

Next is C. propinqua.

The pronotum is very dark and the posterior stripes on it are rather short, much like my Mt Macedon specimen. The description indicates that the pronotum is speckled with black and some red, and that the lateral margins of the pronotum are lined with brown - both again consistent with my specimen. The broader lateral pale patches on the pronotum are what really seem the best feature for me though, so I am happy still calling that one C. propinqua.

Lastly is C. notabilis:

It's clearly not the same as the Mt Macedon one at least. The abdomen is more speckled than C. darlingtoni but less so than C. subgracilis, and the pronotum is dark but has some patterning visible. The tegmina have medium to dense spotting, like my Burwood specimen, and indeed most of it is actually like my Burwood one, more so than C. darlingtoni is. And in fact... yeah, that really does look right. It is somewhat shiny where C. darlingtoni is rather matte, a much better match for mine. What about the Emerald one? Well it could be, but it seems less likely. That specimen is very darkly marked and the pale patches contrast strongly with the dark, with little mottling or speckling in the pale areas. So I still think that one is better for C. subgracilis.

So I think that is a fairly thorough look at the southeastern representatives of this group. The caveat again though: this genus is very difficult to work with and any IDs should be considered tentative at best. We have little idea of the variability and species boundaries of any of these cockroaches, and we need a much better revision before we can even begin to say anything with certainty.

Also just a little cheat sheet for you for the three closely-related genera that are easily confused:

Calolampra - females with vestigial tegmina (micropterous), males usually with full-length wings (macropterous) but brachypterous in one and micropterous in another (the exception is C. elegans, in which the male is apterous and the female is unknown but presumed apterous)

Molytria - females brachypterous, males macropterous (two species) or brachypterous (one species)

Rhabdoblatta - both sexes macropterous