Giant Lacewing
The BBC headline about a “Jurassic-era bug” made me think this was some kind of software glitch from Ada Lovelace’s day, or something [2]. : – )
No, it’s actually an insect [3]. A big insect. Discovered in 2012 on the wall of a Walmart, only recognized in 2020. Her wingspace is 50 mm or so, which is positively dinosaurian for an insect!.
As the headline suggests, this family of insects existed back in Jurassic times, swarming around Stegosaurus and friends. They are still found today, though they are rarely seen in Eastern North America. They used to be locally abundant, swarming in huge numbers here and there, but this species had not been sited since 1950.
What happened to all the giant lacewings? And where did this one come from?
This is particularly mysterious give that these are big bugs, and they used to swarm in large, very annoying numbers. If they are around, we’re likely to know it. So the relatively quick disappearance suggests something happened, likely something anthropogenic.
Very little is known about these insects, so theories of why they disappeared are speculative. Candidates include light pollution (they are attracted to lights) and suppression of forest fires (they are attracted to smoke and probably breed in fire recovery ecologies). It is also possible that introduced predators might have eaten them, or even that introduced earthworms disturbed forest soils in fatal ways.
Where did the Fayetteville specimen itself come from? Does this mean there are remnant populations, or a resurgence somewhere? No one knows. No other specimens have been identified in that area, so presumably it came in from somewhere else, possibly attracted by the lights.
I’ll note that it was found at a Walmart, which are typically centers of vehicle traffic. Perhaps the lacewing hitched a ride on a vehicle, and flew off when it visited the store, maybe attracted by the lights. If so, it could have come from practically anywhere in North America in a few days, as long as it was lodged in a sheltered location on the vehicle.
We probably won’t know where this one came from until we have DNA profiles for quite a few specimens, which might be able to identify geographic populations.
- Adrienne Berard, Rare insect found at Arkansas Walmart sets historic record, prompts mystery, in PennState News, February 27, 2023. https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/rare-insect-found-arkansas-walmart-sets-historic-record-prompts-mystery/
- Chloe Kim, Rare Jurassic-era bug found at Arkansas Walmart, in BBC News, March 1, 2023. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64814931
- J. Skvarla Michael and J. Ray Fisher, Rediscovery of <i>Polystoechotes punctata</i> (Fabricius, 1793) (Neuroptera: Ithonidae) in Eastern North America. Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington, 124 (2):332-345, 11/1 2022. https://doi.org/10.4289/0013-8797.124.2.332
- Emily Schmall, What Is This Thing?’: How a Jurassic-Era Insect Was Rediscovered in a Walmart, in New York Times. 2023: New York. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/02/science/jurassic-insect-discovered-arkansas.html
PS. Wouldn’t “Fayetteville Lacewing” be a great name for a band?
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