Red-legged Gondwana Mite
Size about 7mm. This was one of the most visible animal in the rainforest habitat in Springbrook National Park. Its colours make it pop out. It is constantly moving, turning and hardly ever stands still. Its antennae have a distinctive white marking and they are moved nervously as if to sense smells all the time. My identification might be wrong. I can only count 6 legs and two antennae, which rather makes it an insect and the classification with spiders/mites is most probably wrong. My ID is based on http://entomology.k-state.edu/extension/insect-information/crop-pests/wheat/winter-grain-mite.html where I found a pretty good match. Update 3/4/2017: Today, Nick Porch, a great Australia based entomologist posted a photo of a very similar animal on Twitter. I checked his genus level identification and found a beautiful molecular study (that I can only read the abstract of): http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1046/j.1365-3113.1997.d01-27.x/full I also found more picture representations on the Eriorhynchus genus on the web. Therefore, I decided to rename this animal from Penthaleus major (family Penthaleidae), to Eriorhynchus walteri. Species level as usual quite speculative, but the closest picture and geographical habitat match. The authors - by the way - are from NZ. Of course, I'd encourage all professional entomologists to contribute with picture representations of their animals, especially if they are not shown on ALA yet. (Neither Penthaleidae, nor Eriorhynchidae are represented, despite the fact that the molecular work was done in 1997 where surely a few pictures are available).
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