We often find strange and fascinating bugs out in our pastures, and many times they’re hanging out on the tops of the rabbit tractors. Recently, we saw an interesting insect and it took us a moment to realize what it was because it was smaller than the others of its kind we’ve seen. Do you know what it is?
In case you’re stumped, here are a few hints, courtesy of gardeninsects.com:
- It eats common garden pests like aphids and grasshoppers
- It’s the only known insect that can turn its head and look over its shoulder
- It’s the only predator that feeds at night on moths and the only predator fast enough to catch mosquitoes and flies (its reflexes are twice as fast as a housefly’s)
And…it can fly. The first time we saw one of these here on the farm, it caught out attention by flitting around the light on one of the outbuildings. We thought it was a large moth until we got close enough to see what it actually was!