25mm long | July 12, 2011 | Victorio Siqueroli Park, Uberlandia, Minas Gerais, Brazil
What looks a bit like peanut brittle is presumably an egg mass. I found this on lichen covered bark at the base of a tree. Overall it was about 25mm long, which would make each of the embedded eggs less than 2mm long.
Side view
Each egg appears to be elliptical, with a sort of knob at the exposed end.
Closeup
I don’t have a clue what is responsible for this, so I’d love to see comments from anyone that might have an idea. I’ve been through the “Eggs and Egg Cases” chapter of Tracks & Sign of Insects a few times already, but I haven’t spotted any likely suspects.
My immediate impression was some kind of hemipteran, because they seem to have “lids” on them that the hatchlings can pop open. It’s sort of suggestive of a mass of coreid eggs. I’m not aware of any heteropterans that secrete a covering like this over their eggs (or could that be fungus?), but I’m totally ignorant of things that don’t occur in North America.
I don’t think it’s a fungus. It has cracks in it, so it’s more like a cement. I’d guess that the substrate was laid down first, then the eggs were inserted, and then the substrate hardened.
Come to think of it, lots of reduviids surround their eggs in a sticky secretion, so this sort of thing certainly isn’t out of the question for a heteropteran.
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