vayda on Nostr: 🚨 ARTHROPOD OF THE DAY 🚨 Mantidflies, also called mantis flies or mantispids, ...
🚨 ARTHROPOD OF THE DAY 🚨
Mantidflies, also called mantis flies or mantispids, look like a cross between a lacewing insect and a praying mantis. They are small, delicate creatures with intricately veined wings, but the front half looks like a small mantid, complete with raptorial forelegs.
While many insects, such as butterflies and beetles, have a typical complete metamorphosis — progressing from an egg (resting), to a larva (active), to a pupa (resting), to an adult (active) — mantidflies complicate the pattern in a cycle called hypermetamorphosis:
The eggs are individually stalked, usually deposited in large clusters. The larval stages are quite different from each other, with the first larval stage slender, agile, and either actively searching for a spider egg sac to enter, or else (often literally) hopping onto a spider, which it rides around on until the spider creates an egg sac; the larva then sneaks into the sac while it is being constructed. Then, safely inside the spider egg sac, the larva molts into a chubbier, more grublike, much less active form. It spends its time simply feeding on the spider eggs. The full-grown larva then spins its cocoon and pupates. At first, the pupa rests within its old larval skin, but then the pupa becomes active, sheds the larval skin, and looks something like a wingless adult. This second-phase pupal form is active and crawls around on its old cocoon and the spider’s spent egg sac. Upon its next molt, it acquires its wings and is a fully mature adult. The adults are sexually mature males and females that mate, lay eggs, and continue the cycle.
https://media.clubcyberia.co/pleroma/6593e0aefdd634ac320b025a16ca5e9559c8cc611e56263235a917b80f688301.JPG
Mantidflies, also called mantis flies or mantispids, look like a cross between a lacewing insect and a praying mantis. They are small, delicate creatures with intricately veined wings, but the front half looks like a small mantid, complete with raptorial forelegs.
While many insects, such as butterflies and beetles, have a typical complete metamorphosis — progressing from an egg (resting), to a larva (active), to a pupa (resting), to an adult (active) — mantidflies complicate the pattern in a cycle called hypermetamorphosis:
The eggs are individually stalked, usually deposited in large clusters. The larval stages are quite different from each other, with the first larval stage slender, agile, and either actively searching for a spider egg sac to enter, or else (often literally) hopping onto a spider, which it rides around on until the spider creates an egg sac; the larva then sneaks into the sac while it is being constructed. Then, safely inside the spider egg sac, the larva molts into a chubbier, more grublike, much less active form. It spends its time simply feeding on the spider eggs. The full-grown larva then spins its cocoon and pupates. At first, the pupa rests within its old larval skin, but then the pupa becomes active, sheds the larval skin, and looks something like a wingless adult. This second-phase pupal form is active and crawls around on its old cocoon and the spider’s spent egg sac. Upon its next molt, it acquires its wings and is a fully mature adult. The adults are sexually mature males and females that mate, lay eggs, and continue the cycle.
https://media.clubcyberia.co/pleroma/6593e0aefdd634ac320b025a16ca5e9559c8cc611e56263235a917b80f688301.JPG
