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.

 


Adult Green Lacewing

Green Lacewing
Tiny hairs on the lacewing's wings help them escape spider webs.

May 30th, 2009 - Population explosion of green lacewings at McKee Marsh, near Warrenville, Illinois. It's been several years since I last photographed these guys. I formerly used a Kodak point-and-shoot. Except for the image above, all the other images on this page are taken with a point-and-shoot.

Photographing lacewings with an SLR is a completely different beast. Peering through a viewfinder while crawling around the grass chasing these "weak flyers" is maddening, due to the incredible camouflage their green color (exactly the color of the surrounding vegetation) and translucent wings affords them: look away for a second or two and you'll not be able to locate them again. I find them as captivating and beautiful as any showy butterfly or beetle.

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 wonder why they are classified thus. 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] I have never personally smelled anything while photographing them, but I'm not physically attacking them, either, and they don't have reason to discharge their stink bombs.

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]


 


 


 

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:

  1. Thomas Eisner, Maria Eisner, and Melody Siegler, Secret Weapons: Defenses of Insects, Spiders, Scorpions, and Other Many-Legged Creatures (Belknap Press, 2005).

 

              
 
       web       www.cirrusimage.com

[Cirrus Home]
© 2008 Red Planet Inc. All rights reserved