I’ve had some forced time off the bikes this past month. Usually I spend about nine hours a week on my mountain bikes. Trying to make lemonade out of lemons, and having a bit of extra time, I started doing a lot more macrophotography of insects around the yard. That was a great distraction and got me excited about painting some insects again. I ended up working on an interesting one that mimics wasps. This is a Brown Mantidfly, which honestly looks a bit like a mashup of a Praying Mantis and a European Paper Wasp. My daughter discovered this one in our front garden. It’s an unusual insect that we don’t see very often, so we rushed to get our cameras before it flew off.
These go by a variety of names. Their scientific name is Climaciella brunnea. Common names include Brown Mantidfly and Wasp Mantidfly. They are in the Neuroptera family of insects, which has a bunch of other fascinating predatorial insects like Owlflies, Lacewings and Antlions. Those names alone are pretty exciting. As adults mantidflies are nighttime predators, using their large eyes to find prey, and their spiky, folding praying-mantis-like front legs to capture it. If that isn’t strange enough, their larvae are parasites of wolf spiders. It is truly amazing what bizarre and magnificent creatures can be found right in our own yards!
