Fact Sheet

General Information:

Lacewings are a beneficial insect found in cotton, pecans, and other crops. Adults live on nectar, pollen and honeydew. Larvae are predacious and attack prey by seizing them with their large sucking jaws. Each larva will devour 200 or more pest or pest eggs a week during their 2 to 3 week developmental period. Larvae attack eggs and immature stages of aphids, thrips, spider mites, whiteflies, mealy bugs, leafhoppers and caterpillars.

Description:

Adults are a beautiful green with long translucent wings that on close inspection look some what like lace.They are 1/2 to 3/4 inches long. Lacewing larvae resemble small alligators with large hollow sucking mandibles with which they use to draw out the body fluids of insect pest and pest eggs. Some species while in the laval form attach trash and lint to their backs for camouflage.

Life Cycle:

Adult females lay as many as 200 eggs during her lifetime. Each egg is attached to plant material by a silk stalk. Eggs hatch in 3 to 4 days into the predacious larval form. After 15 to 20 days of feeding, the larvae will spin a cocoon inside of which it will pupate into the adult form. Adults begin to reproduce in 3 to 4 days and live 20 to 40 days. Lacewings over winter as adults. There are commercially available lacewing chambers that can be put up in your garden in the fall. This will be a safe place for adults to spend the winter and helps to increase the survival rate of lacewings.