Nym
Free Ranging
7.05p.m. A big half moon + lots of crickets and cicadas tonite. Mostly cloudy to the south.
What's the temperature where you are???
- Thread starter mamabird
- Start date
Tuesday: 4:00am, 64°F, humidity 89%, wind N @ 3mph, clear.
EmmaDonovan
Crossing the Road
50F with a high of 54 predicted.
46 and sunny…..high of 58
Livestream Tuesday
49°F partly cloudy and windy
12:57 p.m.
12:57 p.m.
Nym
Free Ranging
Wednesday 13th of November 10.20a.m. Mostly grey. 13 / 16.7kph NE, Hg 58%, 20.9C / 69.6F top of 24C / 75F. Shower or two. Possible storm.
Moon is 88.3%
Heatwaves bring sticky afternoons and sleepless nights — but west of Brisbane, they may have also brought "swarms" of Christmas beetles.
Residents in Springfield and Camira, near Ipswich, took to social media after "hundreds" of the beetle surrounded homes on Monday evening.
We have hundreds of them at our front door. They are hitting our windows, guessing attracted to the inside lights
They came out of nowhere tonight. One min there were none, the next we were being invaded by them and they keep hitting the windows and doors trying to get into the light! I've never seen so many at once!
I opened the side door to take the rubbish out and hundreds are swarming the house. I can hear them tapping as they hit the glass of any room with a light on.
I thought I was going mad hearing things tapping on the window. Went out and they're swarming everywhere!!!
Camira resident Roxanna said the sight was "epic".
"I have lived in Brisbane my entire life. The amount of beetles was the most I have ever seen," she said.
"You could hear them tapping as they collided with glass windows. Initially I thought it was heavy rain drops.
"This morning crows are munching on them on our lawn."
Much of south-east Queensland suffered through a heatwave last week.
On Friday, Ipswich peaked at 38 degrees Celsius.
The temperature affects the speed at which the beetle larvae develop, Ms Latty said.
"When the weather starts to warm up the pupa cracks open and the adult Christmas beetle crawls out of the shell and starts flying," she said.
"If you have a nice warm patch that's just enough for them to finish their metamorphosis from a larvae to an adult, then you'll start to see lots coming out around the same time of year."
Mid-November is around the usual time for Christmas beetles to emerge, but as average temperatures rise across the globe, the beetles are now spotted much earlier, she said.
"Anecdotally, last year we were seeing them come out around Halloween," she said.
"As far as we're aware [that] may have been one of the earliest emergences that we know of."
Anecdotal evidence suggests Christmas beetle numbers are declining, Ms Latty said.
"There's a book where they talk about there being so many Christmas beetles that Sydney harbour was glittering.
"We see old newspaper articles that describe trees starting to bow over just from the sheer weight of all the Christmas beetles."
Moon is 88.3%
Christmas beetle 'swarms' in parts of south-east Queensland
Heatwaves bring sticky afternoons and sleepless nights — but west of Brisbane, they may have also brought "swarms" of Christmas beetles.
Residents in Springfield and Camira, near Ipswich, took to social media after "hundreds" of the beetle surrounded homes on Monday evening.
We have hundreds of them at our front door. They are hitting our windows, guessing attracted to the inside lights
They came out of nowhere tonight. One min there were none, the next we were being invaded by them and they keep hitting the windows and doors trying to get into the light! I've never seen so many at once!
I opened the side door to take the rubbish out and hundreds are swarming the house. I can hear them tapping as they hit the glass of any room with a light on.
I thought I was going mad hearing things tapping on the window. Went out and they're swarming everywhere!!!
Camira resident Roxanna said the sight was "epic".
"I have lived in Brisbane my entire life. The amount of beetles was the most I have ever seen," she said.
"You could hear them tapping as they collided with glass windows. Initially I thought it was heavy rain drops.
"This morning crows are munching on them on our lawn."
Heat brings beetles out earlier
The sudden emergence of the beetles may have been caused by warm weather, according to University of Sydney Associate Professor Tanya Latty.Much of south-east Queensland suffered through a heatwave last week.
On Friday, Ipswich peaked at 38 degrees Celsius.
The temperature affects the speed at which the beetle larvae develop, Ms Latty said.
"When the weather starts to warm up the pupa cracks open and the adult Christmas beetle crawls out of the shell and starts flying," she said.
"If you have a nice warm patch that's just enough for them to finish their metamorphosis from a larvae to an adult, then you'll start to see lots coming out around the same time of year."
Mid-November is around the usual time for Christmas beetles to emerge, but as average temperatures rise across the globe, the beetles are now spotted much earlier, she said.
"Anecdotally, last year we were seeing them come out around Halloween," she said.
"As far as we're aware [that] may have been one of the earliest emergences that we know of."
Anecdotal evidence suggests Christmas beetle numbers are declining, Ms Latty said.
"There's a book where they talk about there being so many Christmas beetles that Sydney harbour was glittering.
"We see old newspaper articles that describe trees starting to bow over just from the sheer weight of all the Christmas beetles."
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