Green Mantidfly!

 

Mantidflies are bizarre entomological oddities on nearly every level, and in general they don't seem very common. Most of the ones that I see come into the lights at mothing stations, but every now and then, I'll stumble upon one unexpectedly. Which was surely the case here, although it was sharp-eyed Norah Tempus who did the finding. A group of us were out in the woods on a nocturnal prowl at the Midwest Native Plant Conference at Mt. St. Johns in Greene County, when she called us over for a look at the extraordinary beast.

As you inferred from the post's title, it is a Green Mantidfly (Zeugomantispa minuta). While all the mantidflies are strange and interesting in their own way, this one is especially fetching. It's the first of its kind that I recall seeing. While about 400 mantidfly species occur worldwide only five or so are found in Ohio, and any sighting is memorable. This one, with its lime-green coloration and ornate wing venation, is especially fetching. Green Mantidfly has an enormous range, extending from about our latitude south through the eastern U.S. and on south through Central America and into South America.

Mantidflies look like something cobbled together by a mad scientist. The foreparts resemble a praying mantis, replete with colorful gemmed eyes. Powerful forelegs are used to seize prey, which might be anything smaller than the mantidfly. As this mantidfly is maybe an inch long, we're talking small prey. The wings appear to be stolen off a lacewing, and the thickened abdomen smacks of a wasp.

It gets weirder. Many mantidflies, this one included, are parasitoids of spiders. A larval mantidfly, shortly after hatching, seeks a ride on a spider. When a suitable arachnid passes by, the larval mantidfly hops aboard. If the spider turns out to be a male, the hitchhiker awaits its discovery of a female and subsequent mating. While the spiders are so engaged, the clever mantidfly crosses over to the female. When the female spider begins to create its silken egg sac, the mantidfly hops in and is sealed up with lots of fresh eggs. It then gorges on fresh spider eggs, pupates within the spider nest and eventually emerges as an adult.

That strikes me as pretty risky business, this mantidfly lifecycle. Perhaps that's why they seem to be rather scarce.