More Peculiar Lacewings

Ululodes macleayanus (Ascalaphidae), photographed by yours truly in Taylorsville, KY

For those of us fond of the often-underappreciated order Neuroptera, the oddities of that order—the chimerical mantidflies (Mantispidae), the gas-weaponry-wielding beaded lacewings (Berothidae), and the chrome-eyed owlflies (Ascalaphidae), to name a few—are especially fascinating; and to that list, I would add the giant and moth lacewings, the latest subjects of my personal blog. 

Nah, Strashilids Weren't Fleas

For paleoentomologists, the revelation in January of irrefutable evidence that the Strashilidae—a Mesozoic family of grotesque insects—were not ectoparasites of pterosaurs was startling. (Or at least it was to me.) This complete revolution in our understanding of what these bristly little puzzlers were was in my mind no less drastic than the moment in 1981 when previously dissociated fossils of a jellyfish, a sea cucumber, and a shrimp turned out to have been the corpus of predatory arthropod Anomalocaris.

Why should you care? I dunno...