Sphenophorus brunnipennis
In 3 days ~20% in a week ~40%
Sphenophorus brunnipennis (common name - La Plata weevil) is a beetle in the Dryophthoridae family. It was first described by Ernst Friedrich Germar in 1824 as Calandra brunnipennis. He describes it as living in Buenos Aires.
Sphenophorus brunipennis arrived in Australia from South America, and was found to have been established in Perth and Brisbane by the 1920s, and it appears to be spreading. It has also been introduced into New Zealand. This species is part of species group brunipennis, which differ from most other Sphenophorus species groups in their body surfaces being almost entirely glabrous (smooth and without hairs).
Sphenophorus brunipennis ranges from 7 to 9 mm in length. Like most weevils, they have a rostrum (snout), which is shorter than the pronotum, curved and laterally compressed. The pronotum can be either entirely black or red with three black stripes (sometimes merging in front to form an M shape). The elytral intervals similarly can be either red or black. The pygidium has hairs in punctures that are generally obscured by encrustation.
The sexes can be distinguished by the shape of the pygidium apex: truncate in males and more rounded in females... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|
More parks will be added in future updates.
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Auckland | 🇳🇿 New Zealand |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Sphenophorus brunnipennis sighting in Auckland on a given day, based on 27 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 221st most-seen of the 689 insects we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 20%, and over a week to about 40%, if each day is a fresh chance.
March–April and September–January
In those months about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Sphenophorus brunnipennis in Auckland on a given day, against under 5% in February and May–August, the lowest months.
Only Auckland, in our data
Auckland is the only city on Wallace's Line with enough records to rate Sphenophorus brunnipennis sightings: about 10% of wildlife watchers there report one on a given day.
Same order: Coleoptera
The closest relatives of the Sphenophorus brunnipennis that you can see in Auckland (order Coleoptera, Beetles) are Steelblue Lady Beetle (about 30%), Fungus-Eating Ladybird (about 20%) and Hadda Beetle (about 20%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Sphenophorus brunnipennis is recorded against all the insects logged in Auckland (27 verified sightings), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
