At barely 1.5 millimeters long, Insignorthezia insignis is easy to overlook, but it is one of the most elegant insects on Rinjani. This is a scale insect (family Ortheziidae, order Hemiptera), and its adult female looks like a tiny piece of sculpted wax art.
The body is brownish olive, with two narrow rows of 12 small white wax processes running along either side of the midline. Behind her, she carries an ovisac of brittle, sculpted wax plates that curves slightly upward and ends in a dorsal opening.
Here is the remarkable part: unlike most scale insects, which glue their egg sac to the substrate, I. insignis keeps her ovisac attached to her own body. She walks around carrying her nursery with her.
