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Very Odd Insect


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skunkape

skunkape

Paranormal Maven
It llooks like a dragonfly with moth antennae with a bioluminescent abdomen. Never seen anything like it. I only got one photo before it flew away.


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A Cylon reconnaissance drone moth?

Seriously though, I have never seen anything like it either.
 
This is taken in Texas, .. is that right?? And in the daytime it was still luminescent?? Was it near dusk??

That's pretty interesting. thanks. I would guess it would be some kind of moth, however I'm not aware of any that display bioluminescence.
 
i will ID it for you. my brother is a bug wrangler.

where was this photo taken?
 
Awesome picture. Living in the frozen tundra of Quebec, I never get to see stuff like that. I think I've seen one firefly since moving away from the city. The antennae are really freaky. Was it "flashing" like a firefly or constantly on?

I'll be the first to say that I would not have believed it without a picture :)
 
There are both lepidoptera (butterflies) and moths with transparent wings. However the antennae look like butterfly antennae rather than the fuzzy/branched antennae of moths.. The eye and head looks like a butterfly as well... The bioluminiscence is a puzzler... no idea what it is. Neat pic...
 
I'm just thankful that insects are small. If they were not every parent that tells their kids there are no monsters in the world would be a liar.
 
TClaeys said:
This is taken in Texas, .. is that right?? And in the daytime it was still luminescent?? Was it near dusk??

.
Click to expand...
In Austin, Tejas...middle of the day in August...cloudy. It luminesced almost like a warning when I got close to it with a camera. It flew away, and then flew back, in reverse, and gave me a look. I'm not sure if it was friendly, just curious, or a warning.
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i can't believe it, my brother is stumped. he has forwarded the photo to his experts. at first it looked to me like one of those bee-eating flies but the antenna are to long.

check this bad boy out, i took this photo a couple weeks ago. it is a Great Black Wasp and is a little over 2 inches long.
 

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Jay said:
Over 2 inches long?? *gulp*
I would be running away from this thing like a little girl.
Click to expand...

I am not a fan of wasps either but the thing was so cool I just had to get a shot of it. This is a hand held shot, a testament to Sony's image stabilization technology. I used a Sony A700 with a Zeiss Sonnar 1.8/135 ZA lens
 
I would estimate the insect in the photo was about 2 1/2".
I saw a striped, yellow hornet last summer that was as big as a freakin' crawfish. It literally made my heart jump. It looked like it could kill a man.
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I'm sure you guys have seen these monsters on the internet.

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Some sort of Chimera escaped from your local, top secret, genetic engineering lab, no doubt.
That's a weird looking bug.
If it had a blood sucking thingy it would be terrifying.
 
Here is what the folks at bugguide.net have to say:
We can identify your insect, but we have no comment on the alleged luminescence which is not a typical characteristic of the pictured insect. The insect found by your brother is an Owlfly in the family Ascalaphidae. Owlflies are Neuropterans that are related to Lacewings and Antlions. They are, according to BugGuide: "Bizarre creatures that look like a cross between a dragonfly and a butterfly. The body resembles that of other neuropterans, more-or-less, but the prominent antennae are clubbed like those of butterflies." Owlflies are not capable of emitting light, so the luminescence is a mystery that we are not equipped to solve.

So a mystery remains.

Cheers!

Four-spotted Owlfly - Ululodes quadripunctatus - BugGuide.Net
 
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