Identification, Images, & Information
For Insects, Spiders & Their Kin
For the United States & Canada
Photo#56340
Sawfly? - Onycholyda amplecta - female

Sawfly? - Onycholyda amplecta - Female
Mason Farm Biological Reserve, Orange County, North Carolina, USA
June 7, 2006
Size: 3/4 inch long
It looked like a lampyrid beetle from a distance, but it's clearly neither a beetle nor a fly. It was crawling on grass blades, flew from one to another.

Moved

Onycholyda amplecta (F.)
female; genus formerly Pamphilius

 
Amazing!
Thanks for this information. How did you figure this out? This seems to be a very obscure species.

 
we have a specimen
in the AMNH

Wow.
Yes, it is a sawfly, one of the web-spinning sawflies in the family Pamphiliidae. They tend to be rather ornate, but this one takes the cake I think:-)

 
Sawfly genus
Thanks! Do you think it might be a member of the Acantholyda genus?

 
Most likely Acantholyda...
Indeed, I think this female is a member of this genus.

 
Oh my god
I want to see one of these.

 
Web-spinning sawfly
Isn't it a cutie? Maybe the duck-billed platypus of the Hymenoptera!