 |
Picture Winged Antlion - Ben Caruthers
|
Ben Caruthers sent me this mystery set of wings on the right which he identified by their distinctive coloration as from a picture winged antlion. A few days later he photographed the living specimen above and speculated that it might be an adult from antlion pits he had filmed a little earlier, seen in
this Youtube video. That made a lot of sense until we "dug deeper" into the life history of a PWA.
 |
Antlion pit
|
Antlion adults look like a damselfly on a diet except for the way they hold their wings horizontally on their backs. The garden variety antlion larva (aka doodlebug) is a ground dweller which creates a slippery sloped pit like this one in
Ben's video. When an unfortunate insect slides down the slope the antlion pounces as seen in my video of an
antlion attacking a beetle. That whole story is in
this 2013 blog.
But now the plot thickens. The
MDC Field Guide says that "The doodlebugs of this species, however, live in the debris that
accumulates in the hollows of trees, amid sawdust (decaying wood
particles), squirrel droppings, and other materials. Termites, ants, and
beetle grubs are their prey." Other sources such as the encyclopedic listing at
Entnemdept.ufl.edu featured creatures concur so it is likely that his antlion pit is from a separate species.