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A common green lacewing has turned pink during winter. The springtime sunshine turns it green again.

 

 

The common green lacewing is an insect with delicate, transparent wings with a mother-of-pearl sheen. It has fairly long thread-thin antennas and large eyes gleaming in red or greenish-gold. Lacewings fly quite clumsily despite their big wings and move rather slowly. They inhabit forests, shrubberies, parks and gardens.

 

The delicate-looking imagos feed on nectar, pollen and the sap from greenflies. The larvae of lacewings however live on prey, feeding on the body fluids of various insects. The larvae have a strange external digestion: the larva, up to a centimetre long, grabs the prey in its pincer-like jaws and injects a digestive fluid into the body of the prey which liquidifies the intestines of the latter, and then sucks the victim empty. Lacewing larvae are greedy greenfly destroyers. Thus lacewings should be very welcome in your garden because they keep down the number of plant pests and contribute to the culture of ecological garden products .

 

Taxonomically the lacewings belong to the order Neuroptera or net-winged insects, and the Chrysopidae or lacewing family. There are about ten species in Estonia. The most common are the Chrysopa perla, Chrysopa pallens and the common green lacewing (Chrysoperla carnea). The last-named species likes to creep into buildings in autumn, to survive the winter with fewer worries than when left to the mercies of nature. Outdoors the lacewings spend the winter in leaf debris and withered grass.

 

As weather grows warmer in spring the adults begin to feed and mate and after some time also to lay eggs. The female lacewing places the eggs on plant leaves or stalks near colonies of potential prey. Lacewings can have 2-3 generations per year.

 

The bluish-green wings of Chrysopa perla have black transverse veins