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I lifted the cover off my push bike today and discovered 15-20 of these insects all along one of my brake cables.

A few were tending to "egg" like structures that were stuck to the cable and stood out (I've since wiped these away).

I've never seen these before and haven't had much luck Googling or reverse image searching.

They have black "ant" like bodies with orange/red dots on their back. The same orange/red is present on the tips of their "feelers".

Black and orange bug

Black and orange bike

Video of one walking down my tyre; https://i.stack.imgur.com/LTm5b.jpg

This was in Queensland, Australia.

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  • $\begingroup$ It's difficult to judge scale from the pictures, could you give us some rough idea of size at all? $\endgroup$
    – Jiminy Cricket.
    Dec 16, 2021 at 8:21
  • $\begingroup$ @ARogueAnt. it was about the same size as a large ant. $\endgroup$
    – James
    Dec 16, 2021 at 11:27
  • $\begingroup$ Possibly young harlequin bugs. $\endgroup$
    – Polypipe Wrangler
    Dec 17, 2021 at 8:57

1 Answer 1

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The narrow black body, long bent legs, red abdomen, and red-tinted antennae all make me think this is the nymph of a hemipteran called an assassin bug (Family Reduviidae).

The nymph of the Bee Killer Assassin Bug (Pristhesancus plagipennis) looks similar to yours and is found in Queensland. [Source: Queensland Museum]

enter image description here

Source: Queensland Museum

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  • $\begingroup$ This is definitely what I saw! Thanks! $\endgroup$
    – James
    Dec 19, 2021 at 4:18

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