Note: Most links leave to external sites. Howdy, BugFans, These lovely, fragile-looking insects have fluttered around the edges of several BOTWs over the past 17-plus years, and it’s time for them to have an episode of their own. A bit …
Adult Brown Lacewings have four-wings and are a half-inch-long(ish), with light brown wings, often patterned, and they are less conspicuous—and hairier—than green lacewings. They have chewing mouthparts and conspicuous eyes. Brown lacewing adults and larvae richly deserve their nicknames of “aphid lions” and “aphid wolves,” but they also prey on small critters like mealybugs, white flies, spider mites, scales, and on insect eggs.
These prehistoric-looking insect, Green Lacewings and Fishflies are members of the Order Neuroptera, named for the network of veins in their wings. They have complete metamorphosis—egg to larva to pupa to adult—involving a complete change of appearance.
