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Green Lacewing - Family Chrysopidae
Adult Chrysopids have a number of defenses, including one fine stench
emitted from special thoracic glands.
[1]
Order: Neuroptera - Antlions, Lacewings and Allies / Family Chrysopidae.
Live adult lacewings photographed in northern Illinois, summer of 2005.
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Adult Green Lacewing
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Tiny hairs on the lacewing's wings help them escape
spider webs.
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Green Lacewings are some
of the oddest and most beautiful insects
extant. Their pale green color and
transparent wings (four of 'em) help them
blend into the background foliage. However,
they are clumsy and slow fliers, easily
spotted as they flit about, hunting. They
are supposedly nocturnal, but I see them so
often in the daytime I would not classify
them as such. They are attracted to
artificial lights and can often be seen on
window screens at night.
Adult Green Lacewings
have a number of defenses, among them a
chemical stench they emit from
special glands situated in their thorax. One
component of the compound is skatole,
well known as one of the smelly substances
in mammalian feces. It is presumed this odor
deters predators.
[1]
Lacewings face danger
when in flight, chiefly from bats and spider
webs. Both male and female Chrysopids
are acoustically sensitive to the
frequencies used by bats in echolocation,
and are able to take evasive action while
being pursued. They also have a strategy for
escaping spider webs: they are so light that
when they blunder into a web, they often do
not create enough vibration to alert the
spider. Then, instead of struggling as most
insects do, the lacewing carefully works
itself out by biting through the strands
holding its legs and antennae. Then, when it
is stuck only by its wings, the creature
become completely immobile, letting gravity
do all the work. Slowly, the lacewing will
slide downwards out of the web. It is able
to do so only because the tiny hairs on the
wings prevent the sticky spider silk from
actually contacting the wings' surface.
[1] |
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The Neuroptera, with about 4,500
described species, make up only a tiny fraction of the
insects. The Chrysopidae, the largest family within the
Neuroptera, consists of approximately 1500 species in 90
genera.
Identification: Soft-bodied insects with
shiny, copper-colored eyes, long thread-like antennae, and
transparent wings.
Habitat: Common in grass and weeds and on the foliage of trees
and shrubs. I find these critters nearly everywhere in the wild.
Food: Some adults are predators, others take liquids such as
honeydew, and some take pollen.
Life Cycle: Eggs are characteristically stalked. Larvae are
highly predatory, mostly on aphids and are often called
aphidlions. The larvae pupate in silken cocoons that are
generally attached to the underside of leaves.
References:
- Thomas Eisner, Maria Eisner, and Melody Siegler,
Secret Weapons:
Defenses of Insects, Spiders, Scorpions, and Other
Many-Legged Creatures (Belknap Press, 2005).
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