#1289-1296 - Lacewings
#1289 - Austrocroce sp. - Thread-winged Lacewing
The first ID for 2018, a few seconds after midnight (how did YOU spend the countdown?).
Photo by Brooke Janitz, near Kalgoorlie in Western Australia.
Thread-winged Lacewings are in the same family as the Spoon-winged Lacewings - the Nemopteridae - but instead of have elaborate flattened blades on their hindwings, they have these slender filaments instead. I’m not sure what benefit they derive by evolving in this direction - perhaps female Austrocroce just decided that spoonwings were going out of fashion, and decided they preferred their mates more minimalist. Of course, that assumes that they didn’t start off like this and that Austrocroce is stubbornly retaining the traditional look.
#1290 - Chasmoptera huttii - Hutt’s Spoonfly
I’d just finished posting the Austrocroce pic, end went back through my posts looking for the only Nemopterid I’d seen myself. I couldn’t find it. That’s because I’d never got around to posting it.
I vividly remember photographing this Chasmoptera huttii, on the north-facing slope on a sandhill in Hammond Park, because I had to crawl along on my belly, millimeter by millimeter, until I was in range to take the shot. And the sand was scorchingly hot, even through the overalls. I was in actual pain by the time I managed to get some photos that were in focus.
#1291 - Apertochrysa edwardsi - Green V-neck Lacewing
A large Chrysopid Lacewing from my front yard. Information available about the species? Sweet fuck all. Seems to be quite widely distributed across Australia though.
#1292 - Green Lacewing Larvae - Chrysopidae
No idea what genus, but concealing themselves under a shell of debris and previous victims is absolutely typical for the family, as they patrol around the branches looking for something to seize and suck dry with their hollow jaws.
Somewhere between Narrogin and Perth, on one of the 5 hour round trips I have to do whenever they send me out into the Wheatbelt for a job. At least the eucalypt woodland closer to the coast had some interesting species to shake out of the trees.
#1293 - Drepanacra binocula - Australian Variable Lacewing
Small Brown Lacewings from the Hemerobiidae family, native to Australia, but widespread in New Zealand too (but it’s not clear if they got there by themselves or had help). Voracious predators of psyllids and whitefly when young, including the shining spleenwort whitefly, Trialeurodes asplenii if this NZ factsheet is anything to go by.
The variable part in the common name refers to the wing markings, which can differ widely, and led to the naming of many now invalid subspecies.
My carport, in Perth.
#1294 - Brown Lacewing Larvae - Hemerobiidae
Photo by Sarah Antonic, but she failed to mention where in Australia she took the photo.
One of the day-light loving larvae of the Brown Lacewings - hungry little predatory that prowl around the branches of trees, shrubs, and the like. Can be quite useful in green houses.
#1295 - Nymphes myrmeleonides - Giant Blue-eyed Lacewing
A large and distinctive Nymphid lacewing, that usually attracts attention whenever it turns up. Which is why the Amateur Entomology Australia Facegroup group has provided me with multiple adults, distinctive egg clusters, and a larva to ID.
Photo below by Natalie Woods, on the Gold Coast in Queensland.
Nymphes eggs are laid on stalks , like those of many lacewings, but for some reason they’re laid in a U, which each egg separated from the neighboring stalk by an additional egg. It’s not entirely clear why - lacewings are voracious cannibals from shortly after hatching, but even have a spare sibling to snack on right next door wouldn’t seem to protect who ever hatches from the egg after that.
Photo below by Michael Gee in Sydney
Nymphid larvae can be distinguished from ant-lions, owlflies, and other lacewing families by the jaws - in the Nymphids, they only have the single pre-apical tooth.
Photos below by Michele Mcleod, who found it in a house in Bentley, NSW, which is a bit odd.
#1296 - Stenosmylus tenuis
I found this Osymlid lacewing while on a field trip with the WA Naturalists Club, to the Wellard Wetlands. People’s faces are probably not its natural habitat.
Of course, it does seem to be a long way from where-ever its natural habitat actually IS - since not only is Stenosmylus tenuis apparently unknown from Western Australia, the entire family has never been reported from Western Australia, at least if I go by the museum records up on the Atlas of Living Australia.