This creature fell on the head of one of our instructors while she was sitting at her desk in NYCCT. What kinds of beetles are crawling around the light fixtures in the college?
This creature turned out to be an invasive species. The oriental beetle (Anomala orientalis) is sometimes confused with a Japanese beetle and is equally as destructive to plants as the larvae feed on them voraciously. It is also known as Exomala orientalis.
The students excitedly came in after catching this fly. “It has a massive stinger on it!” one said. I explained that it didn’t look like a stinger and that it was probably an ovipositor, making it a female insect.
Billy Bob Bart ended up being a Robber fly called Efferia aestuans (EOL). Robber flies (or assassin flies) are notorious for predating other insects. They ambush from below to take them out in the air while flying. These are good to have around since they take out the nuisance species.
The legend who started it all. Croissant was found by the students during lunch in the park. At that point, we decided to do a DNA barcoding project. Under the microscope, it clearly looked like some proto-insect. So we decided it was a larva and would only know of what species if we barcoded it.
Croissant was identified as a Green Lacewing of the species Chrysoperla rufilabris (EOL). So he had to be a larval form. These larva are great for pest control because they eat other nuisance insects in the garden. Unknowingly, the group captured an adult later on called Zeñon.
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