Giant Flea?

Posted in Insects by Mark on 02/10/2018

Or bug bounty … got home to these creatures dead and dying on my regular path beneath the house in Bris. I can’t find a likely source, they are around 100 and grouped in a rough disc in the middle of the path with no trail back to anywhere I can see, and they don’t seem to have come from the house above. They jump like fleas too, and between 10 and 15mm long – roughly.

Does anyone know what they are, and what their likely source could be?

*Click on the pictures for a proper look … and click again

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FlowerAlley said, on 04/10/2018 at 2:52 am

Fascinating, but gross.

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- Mark said, on 04/10/2018 at 10:00 am
  
  They are not attractive creatures, re-minding as they do of uncomfortable encounters.
  
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Lissa Clayton said, on 02/10/2018 at 8:03 am

Here’s your answer :)

Even describes their appearance the same way you do as if “they fell from the sky”. Talitroides topitotum
http://www.qm.qld.gov.au/Find+out+about/Ask+an+Expert/Question+of+the+month/Question+Archive/Questions/2011/August+2011#.W7KZTnszbIU

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- Mark said, on 02/10/2018 at 10:18 am
  
  Thanks Lissa. That could be it, looks like it.
  
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Deb said, on 02/10/2018 at 7:47 am

Land shrimp or lawn shrimp, possibly washed out of the grass by recent rain? I don’t know anything about them but I’ve often seen tiny ones when I’m digging in gardens or in leaf litter in the bush.

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- Mark said, on 02/10/2018 at 10:23 am
  
  I also thought of those creatures that go hopping when I lift a settled pot tray in the garden, but these are bigger. Recent rain might have brought them.
  
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Michael said, on 02/10/2018 at 6:39 am

Hi Mark,
I’d be looking at crustaceans, like Gammarus.

Come up, dried out and died?

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- Mark said, on 02/10/2018 at 10:21 am
  
  Hi Michael.
  
  I was also thinking tiny shrimp … I didn’t see them come, just found them mostly dead, and a few more this morning. If they came from the garden it looks like they travelled quite a way and stayed in a tight group. Still weird … when there is so much space nearer the garden they could have landed.
  
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Lissa Clayton said, on 02/10/2018 at 5:50 am

Hi Mark. Fascinating. I had a quick look at Brisbane Insects and couldn’t find it. Try contacting the museum perhaps with your photos and some detail of location and size: http://www.qm.qld.gov.au/Find+out+about/Animals+of+Queensland/Insects/What+insect+is+that/Insect+identifier#.W7J54HszbIU

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- Mark said, on 02/10/2018 at 5:55 am
  
  Hi Lissa. They are roughly 10 – 15mm long. It’s as if they fell from the sky, except they are under the house and nowhere nearby they could have come from. Weird …
  
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