Rudy Mancke helps a listener identify the chandelier-like eggs of the green lacewing.
Transcript:
RUDY MANCKE:
Hi, this is Rudy Mancke from University of South Carolina for NatureNotes.
Mariangela Rivera was looking at a tomato on one of her tomato plants, and there was something hanging off the base that looked like a chandelier to her. And she wondered what in heaven's name was these white things with the little stalks on them.
These are eggs — we've talked about them before — of the green lacewing, sometimes called the golden eye lacewing. And those little eggs are laid on stalks because the larvae that come out of those eggs are voracious, they'll eat anything. I think if they can get to the other eggs, they'd eat them too.
And they're called aphis lions as larvae because they're feeding on aphids. Amazing. Adults fly to lights at night, and they've got these greenish bodies with that golden eye.
