Wednesday 22 July 2015

mmmmMantidflies again!

Last summer I was really excited to find a Mantidfly at my moth light. I wrote up a pretty thorough summary about that observation including some information about Mantidflies in Canada and the identification of that beast so check it out for some background.

Anyways, fast forward to a couple of nights ago and sure enough, there was another mantidfly waiting for me! This one looks like the same species as last year but I managed a bit better images:




Anyways, as I said, this is the same species as last year - Dicromantispa sayi, a species formerly only known from the Carolinian zone of southwestern Ontario, but there was a 2013 record from Tweed (Hastings County) and now my two from my yard in Frontenac County. With the moths I have been catching here I have really noticed a lot of species I am getting are mostly restricted to the Carolinian Zone plus the Kingston area so it isn't too surprising I guess to see the same with other insect groups.

I took a short video of this specimen too:

Anyways, they're such cool-looking creatures, not to mention their bad-ass life history that it is exciting to find them! If you're not convinced read my post from last year.