Click to Enlarge An adult owlfly points its abdomen in the air when at rest. Their larvae camouflage themselves with dirt and debris and wait for prey to happen by.   Lacewings, Doodlebugs And Other Oddballs by Eric R. Eaton illustrations by David Besenger Have you ever seen lions in your backyard? Have you ever seen lions in your backyard? Maybe not the big cat kind, but there are insects just as ferocious prowling your neighborhood. And that’s when they’re youngsters! Instead of golden manes and sharp teeth, these antlions and aphidlions grow up into delicate creatures with crystalline wings. Lacewings, ant lions, and their cousins are members of a group called the Neuroptera, a Greek name reflecting the nervelike branching pattern of their wing veins. You’ve probably seen at least one of our 10 species of green lacewings at your porchlight. Their golden eyes and fairy-like appearance give no hint of their ugly childhood. Female lacewings lay their eggs in groups, each one atop a stiff thread, attached to leaves or twigs. This keeps the eggs safe from predators, including their hatching siblings! These little demons are “aphidlions,” bristly larvae that scurry about searching for aphids and other small insects to devour. Grabbing prey with fang-like jaws, they suck their victims dry. Some larvae throw the remains onto their back. The collection of corpses helps the aphidlion hide from its own enemies. They shed their “skins” three times over two weeks. Strangely, they don’t defecate! Instead, they use some of their body wastes to produce silk, spun from their tail, which they use to make a cocoon. Inside the cocoon, they shed a final time and turn into an inactive pupa stage. About a week later (or the following spring), out pops a lacewing. Unlike the bloodthirsty juveniles, the adults feed mostly on flower nectar, pollen, and honeydew (the sugary waste of aphids and other sap-sucking bugs). Stink glands help some lacewings repel enemies. A few species can also hear bats approaching and evade attack by doing flying acrobatics. Aphidlions chase their prey, but antlions let meals come to them. Some dig funnel-shaped pits in dry, dusty soil. These are the “doodlebugs” of American folklore. You may find small colonies under overhanging cliffs, at the base of trees, beneath bridges, or in the dirt floors of abandoned barns. The pits are shallow and rarely wider than a half-dollar. A stubby little larva digs the trap by walking backward in ever-smaller circles, flinging away the soil with its flat head and large jaws. Buried at the bottom of a finished pit, it waits. Once an insect or spider falls in, the sloping walls of the crater prevent it from escaping. When it tries to crawl out, it simply slides back to the bottom in a small avalanche of sand or dirt grains. This treadmill of death speeds up as the larva throws more soil on the hapless victim, hurrying its descent into the waiting jaws of doom. Since meals can be infrequent, antlions may take up to three years to mature. They eventually spin a soil-encrusted cocoon that holds the pupa stage. An adult emerges in about a month. With their long, thin bodies and four wings of equal length, antlions could be mistaken for damselflies. The difference is that adult antlions have thick, knobbed antennae. Most of our six species fly poorly and are attracted to lights at night. By day, they rest on twigs or grass stems, perfectly aligned and nearly invisible. Speckles and spots on their wings enhance their camouflage. Most are about two inches long. Owlflies, with their large eyes and stout, hairy bodies, are more like dragonflies. Their keen vision and swift, powerful flight help them hunt hunt on the wing during twilight hours. Their long, clubbed antennae add to their bizarre appearance. At rest, owlflies stick their abdomens in the air, and wrap their wings downward around their perch. Females attach eggs to twigs in loose clusters, with a ring of infertile eggs below. Newly hatched larvae eat these infertile eggs as their first meal. They resemble antlions, but merely lie in ambush on the surface of the soil with their huge jaws wide open. Four species are found in Missouri. Mantispids look like a miniature praying mantis stuck together with a lacewing. One of the two Missouri species also looks like a paper wasp, posing on flowers with wings cocked like the real thing! Females lay big batches of tiny eggs on short stalks. The larvae hatch and scatter in search of spiders. Each larva finds its own ground-dwelling spider and climbs aboard, hoping it is a female. When the spider spins an egg sac, the larva crawls in. With such a handy feast of delicious spider eggs, the larva sheds its skin and turns into the bug version of a couch potato. When finished eating spider eggs, it spins its own cocoon. The pupa is active and eventually chews its way out, crawling to where the adult mantispid can emerge and unfurl its wings. There are still other neuropterans, like the “aphidwolves” that become brown lacewings. These are smaller and less common kin of the green lacewings. Beaded lacewings are similar, but the tips of their front wings are hooked. Their larvae eat termites, gassing them with a chemical passed from their tails. Spongillaflies spend their youth underwater as parasites of freshwater sponges! There is no end to the weird and wacky in the world of insects. With a little curiosity, and lots of patience, you can discover an exciting realm right where you live. Just be glad you are too big to worry about aphidwolves and antlion pits!