Our Egg Hatched! It's a Lacewing!

In a previous post I shared a photo of a egg sac that I found on a leaf in my yard. I put it in my clear observation box and this morning there was a green lacewing in the box and the egg sac was empty.

Try as I might, I could not get a clear shot of the insect but he was a beauty.

"The lacewing fly or goldeneyes, as she is called, is the mother of the aphis lion. She lays her eggs on the top of stiff, silken stalks. The young aphis lions when hatched, clamber down upon the leaf and feed upon plant lice, sucking their blood through their tubular jaws."
Handbook of Nature Study, page 357

I never expected to learn so much about this type of insect in the Handbook of Nature Study. Anna Comstock writes with such an easy to understand style and now I can share the information with my kids when we see these helpful insects in the garden.

I found the egg sac on the leaf of my chrysanthemum and now it makes sense. This plant is always covered in little aphid like bugs and I now know that is the favorite food of the green lacewing.

You can find more about the lacewing on pages 356-358 of the Handbook of Nature Study.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom