Part Dragonfly, Part Praying Mantis?
Hi!
I found this very interesting insect in my backyard in Charleston, SC, on July 24, and it was ~1-1.5 inches long. When I found it, it was in the grass and looked like it had just ‘molted’/metamorphed because the wings were still kind of smooshed as if the bug had been crammed into a too-small container. I think it’s a praying mantis of some kind, but I couldn’t find any photos that looked like my critter! I know that mantids have wings, but these remind me of dragonfly wings in shape/coloration/vein pattern. And the kaleidoscopic eyes are something I’ve NEVER seen! Do you know what it is? Thanks,
Kim
Hi Kim,
This is a Mantidfly in the family Mantispidae, and probably in the genus Dicromantispa as evidenced by BugGuide. Despite their appearance, Mantidflies are not related to Mantids. We really love the close-up you have provided us. Your Mantidfly close-up photo looks like a glamorous Hollywood starlet portrait.
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Posted 26 July 2008
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Dynastes tityus female and Glenurus gratus
After a little searching on your website, I identified these two specimens found in my front yard. I live in Missouri below St. Louis. Hercules Beetle, Dynastes tityus female. She is 6.3 cm. (2.5 in.) from the head to the tip of the last leg. You can see the right side of the carapace is cracked because my dad stepped on the poor girl last night and that is how she was found. We released her this morning:
Jenny
Hi Jenny,
Because it makes it difficult to archive letters with species belonging on different pages, and because we just posted a letter with both a male and female Eastern Hercules Beetle, we will only be posting your lovely image of an Antlion, Glenurus gratus, probably the most magnificent Antlion found in North America.
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Posted 20 July 2008
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Burrowing Bug…
My name is Bill and I live in Ringwood New Jersey which is the northern section of the state, my Daughter and I have noticed these cone shaped pits around the house. The top of the pits are about 1 1⁄2 inches and funnels down to a point. Whenever an ant or any other bug gets caught in these pits they slide to the bottom and then they get ambushed by this bug and then dragged underground. This all happens in a split second. This picture was taken under a 15 power microscope. The largest one is about the size of your pinky nail. Thank you and keep up the great work, your site is one of the best…
William Karlak
Hi William,
This is a Doodlebug, the larva of an Antlion. Your description is right on.
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Posted 17 July 2008
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Green and Winged?
I only got a photo of it and don’t know much about this insect. Tried a few sites but couldn’t find anything. (from istanbul/Turkey)
Yalin
Hi Yalin,
This is a Lacewing, a harmless predator. The body is more rubust than the species we find in Southern California.
You got an idea?
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Posted 17 July 2008
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Preying hornet ?
Hi, Love your website !!! This little creature was outside our back door here in New Hampshire. Could you please identify this preying mantis like wasp ?? It was about an inch long. Walks like a preying mantis and acts like one.
(07/11/2008) some sort of mantis?
Hi,
Great site! Greetings from Forest Park, IL. I snapped this pic of a 1"-long, rather bizarre bug on my door frame. It seems like a mantid of some kind (the head shape and front legs mostly) but I can’t find a resource to confirm it. I hung 2 mantis pods in the backyard this year and have seen smaller, regular looking mantises around, but only one of this variety. Any ideas what it is? Thanks!
Curt
Hi Curt,
Your insect is a Mantisfly, a predatory insect related to Lacewings in the order Neuroptera. We are including another letter with your posting, because we really like the person inquiring if it was a Preying Hornet.
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Posted 11 July 2008
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Can’t find it anywhere . . .
Hi,
I checked your archives and couldn’t find this bug. I don’t think it’s an adult. Perhaps it’s a larva of something easily recognizable when it’s full grow? The bug lives in my shed, in a light layer of dirt atop the concrete floor. I first noticed it building a cone/trap. It would burrow in a circle, just under the surface and flip out the dirt with it’s head. It would continue to go round and round until it had excavated its trap and then bury itself at the bottom of the cone, sometimes with its head exposed, other times not. The pictures were taken last June 2008 in Elkton, OR (SW Oregon, Douglas Cty). This first picture shows its trap – a shallow cone-shaped depression in the dirt. You can notice a pale, round object at the bottom of the cone. That’s the critter’s head. Closer inspection of the head: Next time I looked, there were 3 cone-shaped depressions (there’s now 8), and in the bottom of one cone, I noticed this drama (don ‘t know what the prey is, either): Eventually, my curiosity got the better of me, and with a blade of grass, I dug out one of the cone builders: I put him back in his cone when I was done with him. Any idea what it and its prey are? Thanks,
John
PS – Great site and great service you provide. I take pictures of bugs every day, and you can be sure I’ll be back.
Hi John,
What a great photo of a Doodlebug, the larva of an Antlion. We would need additional time to identify the prey, but the upsidedown angle might make it difficult.
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Posted 02 July 2008
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Neither dragon nor fair damsel?
Hello,
We found this little fellow flying about the house. Three years ago I found and photographed what seems to be the same type of creature dead in a spider web, much less identifiable. The body is about 1" to maybe 1-1/4" long. It flies like a dragonfly, but it folds its wings back like a damselfly. I had to disturb it a bit to get the photo with more open wings. Unlike a damselfly, it has quite pronounced antennae. It also seems to prefer to land flat on a flat (usually vertical) area rather than perching like a dragonfly. I’m at a loss and so is a friend who is better at identification. Do you know what it is?
Dave
Oak Ridge, TN
Hi Dave,
We are totally smitten by the poetry of your subject line. This is an Antlion. Antlion larvae are known as Doodlebugs. Doodlebugs dig a pit in sandy soil, and wait buried at the bottom with only their formidable jaws exposed. They devour any small prey that slips into the pit.
Hello Daniel,
Thank you very much! We have the larval form of antlions aplenty. I’ve never realized what the adult form looked like and I would never have thought of it. Now I am surprised that I have not seen more of these.
Dave
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Posted 21 June 2008
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Odd Damselfly?
Hi! I’ve been enjoying your site, and have identified various bugs, including a gorgeous giant leopard moth. But I’ve got a bug that I haven’t been able to find anywhere. My children found it right next to our door last week. I took one picture, then got it to move and took another picture. It seemed to be pretty much all one dark brown color, except its wings, which were translucent with dark brown veins. At first I thought it was a moth because of the way the wings were held, but then I saw the exceptionally long abdomen, the translucent wings, and the rest of it, it just didn’t look like a moth. I couldn’t tell if it had one or two sets of wings. I was wondering if it might be some odd sort of damselfly? Sorry I had to take pictures of it on brick, I know that’s not helpful. Thank you!
Marilyn, in Florida
Hi Marilyn,
This is an Antlion, probably Brachynemurus longicaudus. You can find them on our Neuropteran pages.
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Posted 03 June 2008
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Not sure what this is.
Looks like the Mantidfly, but this one really looks like a wasp and not as hairy. Also added a couple of other picture not sure what they are either.
Yes, this is a Mantidfly.
Ed. Note: Our personal response to the querant who neglected to provide a location and who did not sign the email ended with the brief response above. We are letting the rest of our readership know, however, that we got a tad bit annoyed with what we consider to be a thankless request. The email contained eight images in total. It takes us a bit of time to answer and post, and an indication of gratitude is all we ask in return. Additionally, not providing us with a location might be our biggest peeve. Also, trying to sort through countless emails to piece together information sent by a querant, sometimes from multiple email addresses, is often more than we can take. Please forgive us this ranting digression and please be mindful that information you provide to us should be as complete as possible, and whenever resending us additional information, it is usually desireable to include your original information plus the images so we don’t have to conduct a scavenger hunt to assemble the pieces. Finally, please please please just one identification request per email. You would be surprised at the number of people who send every insect photo they have ever taken to us and expect identifications on them all, when browsing our site for a few minutes will probably provide many of their answers. Those letters usually go straight to the trash.
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Posted 17 May 2008
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Not your average South Carolina Doodle Bug!!!!
Hi Guys!
My 6 year old Daughter Laura has found what appears to be a gigantic ant lion larva! I didn’t have a scale to put next to it (I must get one for this purpose) but it was a little more than 3/4" long and looked just like a typical "doodle bug" yet huge and with some additional frilliness around the edges . She found it out in the open on the stone border of our backyard flower bed. We are located along the southern coast of South Carolina and have an unusually large assortment of backyard wildlife for our little bug lover to observe. In the photo its on its back with its head bent toward its belly in an attempt to turn over… the legs did not extend outside the outline of the body and weren’t much good for turning over but they could grip very well even on smooth paper. We photographed this critter and Laura carefully returned it to the spot where she found it. In 42 years of digging in the dirt I’ve never seen an ant lion larva so large. After looking all thru your site, we saw the more typical ant lion larva and the super sized adult ant lions, but nothing in the larva department which seemed this large. Also, thank you for your diligent detective work several years back when you identified my very scary looking, yet ultimately harmless, male Southern Crevice spider. Your site has provided many educational opportunities for Laura and she was thrilled (with a little help from Daddy) to identify an assassin bug she found a few weeks ago! Since the Crevice spider ID, just about all spiders and other critters have been carefully escorted out of the house under Laura’s careful supervision. No unnecessary carnage here! best regards,
Kert , Liz and Laura Huggins
Dear Kert, Liz and Laura,
We suspect that you have been finding younger Doodlebugs in the garden and this specimen may be getting ready to pupate. We found a photo on BugGuide with a ruler that approximates the size of your Antlion Larva.
Possible Correction: (05/14/2008) WTB correction
Daniel:
I have a minor potential correction, sorry: The “doodlebug” may be something even more exciting. While it could be the larva of one of the giant antlions like Glenurus gratus, it is more likely the larva of a related insect, an owlfly (family Ascalaphidae). Instead of making pits like some antlion larvae, the larvae of owlflies lie in ambush just under the surface of the soil, or even out in the open on foliage. Neat find!
Eric
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Posted 12 May 2008
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Strange dinosaur bug in Carmichael CA —–What could it be?????????????
Hi
I found this winged bug sitting on my car’s window this afternoon. It immediately caught my attention because -seriously- it looked reptilian. It’s colors were dark green, yellow and it had orange legs. It really looked like it had scales. It’s neck and antenna are long and it has a long tail too that I thought at first was a stinger. But the longer we looked at each other the more I started to doubt that that’s what it was. Anyway, as soon as I saw this little guy, I thought of you and ran back upstairs to get my camera. I’m sending you several images of it. Sadly, the image from the side is blurry -my camera just couldn’t focus. But I’m sending it anyway because you can still see the arch of it’s long tail. I know you guys can’t answer every email but please answer mine? This bug is just so pretty! And I really want to know what it is. The way it moved was just so graceful! It’s long neck seemed so flexible when it would bend and it’s little head was just so…let’s just say that it was checking me out as much as I was checking it out! It was so cool. Please help me identify it? Thanks so much! I love your site!!!!!!!
Jen in Carmichael CA
Hi Jen,
It is true that we cannot answer every email. We are not proud to admit it, but when we get swarms of emails, and our real lives cannot allow us the luxury to post to the internet, we delete many emails without even opening them. No subject in the subject line will most certainly wind up in the trash. You, on the otherhand, know how to catch our attention. How could we even try to ignore a letter that starts with “Strange dinosaur bug in Carmichael CA —–What could it be?????????????”? The answer is we just can’t. Another big pet peeve of ours is not including a location, and your letter even included that in the subject line. Catching our attention when we are scanning letters can be likened to a one sentence pitch for a movie script. You need to grab our attention and intrigue us. You Jen, did just that. Before we even opened the email and read it, we started to wonder just what bug you thought looked like a dinosaur. Well, this is a female Snake Fly. The tail is her ovipositor. Snakeflies are Neuropterans, and there are some other monstrous members in the order. Just take a look at our Dobsonfly page. Snakeflies are in the suborder Raphidiodea. Thanks for a descriptive letter that is fun to read, a catchy subject line, and a nice photo to complete the package. This is our favorite type of letter to post.
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Posted 25 March 2008
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Identification of ?Robber Fly and Scorpion Fly
Dear Bugman,
Happened upon your site tonight and am most excited! Have bought several books and trying to identify local species in our Southern Tablelands area of NSW, Australia. Hubby and I spend a good deal of time at Bungonia State Recreation Area doing the lazy man tours of the gorgeous bush to see what interesting things we c an find…..we are never disappointed! What first started out as just native flowers and now turned into fauna and in particular, BUGS! I’ve attached two photographs taken this month and am hoping you can identify them. They’re beauties! Cheers!
Katherine & Ricky Lee
Hi Katherine and Ricky Lee,
What a positively gorgeous Blue Eyes Lacewing, Nymphes myrmeleonides, which we identified on the Geocities website. According to Wikidpedia, it is one of the largest Lacewings in the world. It belongs to the family Nymphidae and the order Neuroptera which contains other insects like owlflies and mantispids.
Dear Daniel,
What a beautiful photo Katherine and Ricky Lee have taken of the Blue Eyes Lacewing! Congratulations to you both. These insects are around our place a lot lately. You can recognise them before they land by their distinctive manner of flying – as though their wings are a bit disjointed. They like to sit underneath leaves and look up and out at the world. I recall that my first email to you was about the eggs of the Nymphes myrmeleonides, which you posted on the Eggs page, so perhaps Katherine and Ricky would like to do a bit of cross checking and watch out for the eggs. Regards
Grev
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