Family Panorpidae - Common Scorpionflies

SCORPIONFLIES: refers to the appearance of the male's 3-segmented terminal appendage, which is held in an upward recurved position, and the last segment is bulbous at the base and sharply pointed at the tip, like a scorpion's stinger [scorpionflies do not sting]

PANORPIDAE: from the Greek "pan" (all) + "horpo" (a sickle); refers to the sickle-shaped curve in the terminal appendage of all males

body 9-25 mm

Adult: head with elongated rostrum ("beak"); body typically yellowish-brown; 2 pair of wings, usually spotted or banded, and held in swept-back position at rest, giving V-shaped profile viewed from above

male abdominal appendage is described above; female abdomen tapers to slender tip, bearing two small finger-like cerci

Larva: resembles a caterpillar - head sclerotized (hardened); body nearly membranous, with setae (hairs) projecting from dorsal and lateral surfaces of abdominal segments; 3 pairs of conical thoracic legs; 8 pairs of smaller prolegs on first 8 abdominal segments

eastern North America

the genus Panorpa also occurs throughout Eurasia and in Mexico

variable: low shrubs and ground cover in densely-vegetated woodlands, often near water or wet seeps; grasslands; cultivated fields; forest borders

adults are usually seen resting on leaves less than a metre from the ground

May to September

adults feed mostly on dead or dying insects, rarely on fruit or nectar

larvae are scavengers, feeding on soft-bodied dead insects

eggs are laid in the soil; newly-hatched larvae feed for a month or more, passing through 4 instars, then prepare a cavity in the soil to enter a resting stage which lasts for about 5 weeks; larvae then enter the pupa stage, which lasts 2 or 3 weeks in species that become adults in late summer, or several months in species that overwinter and emerge as adults in the spring

Mating behavior begins with the male offering some kind of food, such as a dead insect or, often, a short column of a brown salivary secretion that becomes gelatinous as it dries in the air. The male also emits a pheromone (an air-borne chemical signal) from vesicles within the enlarged ninth abdominal segment. A female is attracted to the pheromone or the food, whereupon the male grasps the end of her abdomen with the claw-like appendages on his genital segment (dististyles). He also clamps the costal (front) edge of one of the female's forewings in a structure on the mid-dorsal part of his abdominal segments 3 and 4 (the notal organ). Mating then takes place as the female feeds.

[adapted from description at Emporia U., Kansas]