Thread: ID big insect Bali, Indonesia

Hello,
I saw this insect by the side of the pool in Ubud, Bali.
It had praying mantis-like front legs.
When it lifted the deck shields, just before it flew away into the rice fields, I could see it was bright red under the shields.
It had a long 'tail'.
Anybody knows what the name of this insect is?
Thanks in advance,
dirk weemaes
www.sabandari.com

Great to see an appreciation of little critters. I collect insects...but am not familiar with the specimen.
At first glance and from your description it appears to be a predatory species of the order 'hemiptera'...most members of this order, in contrast, suck liquid from plant matter.

The following is a good forum to narrow down the identification:

http://www.insectnet.com/cgi/dcforum/dcboard.cgi

Someone on that forum should be able give you an identification to the family or even genus level. Large insects from various islands of Indonesia are favorites of some insect enthusiasts.

A true bug?

And here I was thinking it looked like a beetle of some sort. Didn't the hemiptera lose their wings - or am I getting confused here?

cheer

the sunshine "not an entomologist at all" warrior

Might be a whip scorpion.

I would say a water scorpion.

http://www.northern.edu/natsource/invert1/waters1.htm

Originally Posted by spuriousmonkey

I would say a water scorpion.

http://www.northern.edu/natsource/invert1/waters1.htm

Yeah, you got it. Your link doesn't work, but here is Wikipedia's entry:

Water Scorpion



EDIT: Oh, your link and photo is working fine from home. Must be some pretty stupid shaping rules at work. Cool origami water scorpion!

Cool.

It must have been a water scorpion indeed.
Nice work team.
Regards from sunny Ubud,
dirk weemaes
www.sabandari.com/en