Fishfly or Dobsonfly?
July 27, 2013
One of the cool thing about Moth Nights is that you learn about other cool insects. (Our next moth night -- the Moth Ball -- is Wednesday night. Scroll down a few posts for more info.)
In June, I posted pics of several bugs attracted to my moth lights, including the photo above. Link is here.
One person ID'd it as Dobsonfly. Another ID'd it as a Fishfly. So I looked up both, and it's really hard to tell from a single photo. These are two very similar insects.
But in reading about both, I think the bug is a Fishfly because it has short mandibles and feathery antennae. (But as you know, I could be wrong!)
The link is here.
Equally cool is the fact that the larval stage of both bugs is called a hellgrammite -- one of the strangest (seemingly prehistoric) little creatures I've ever seen.