A noon check of the Omeo Gum and its Autumn Gum Moth larvae, came up with a surprise. On one of the daytime shelters, a predatory shield bug had captured a larva and was beginning to feed. The first image clearly shows the piercing stylets, these suck up the bodily juices of its prey. This bug has been identified on iNaturalist as Oechalia schellenbergii, a hatching of which occurred in this tree in early March.
Click images to enlarge.
More photographs were taken at intervals during the day showing the process.
By 8 PM it had moved to the head end for dessert.
Next day the bug was still there, it had apparently sucked its first prey dry and had selected a new victim when the larvae emerged at night to feed. What an appetite!
