Antlion! - 02 Sep 2009


Esteemed colleague Ken Hinzman popped into the lab this morning with a little friend he found outside his home. It was an Antlion (Family Myrmeleontida)!

We took the larvae into Dan Holowicki's lab and took several photos under his stereomicroscope (8X - 16X magnifications). We then took the little guy into my lab and took some images under my stereoscope using the flexible arm light source. Check out those pincers!


With the Antlion in a glass Petri dish with a small amount of sand its first instincts were to dig a burrow. We were able to grab several images and include one w/ a dime for scale. Ken mentioned that he saw several of these outside his home and watched as they wait for ants to walk by and slide into the burrow.



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What a great bug!