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Photo#461214
Sympherobius amiculus

Sympherobius amiculus
Parkwood, Durham County, North Carolina, USA
August 20, 2010
Size: 3 mm body length
I found this petite brown lacewing at my porch light and captured and measured it. Body length is a bit over 3 mm. Head to tip of folded wings is just over 5 mm. It looks close to Symperhobius barberi, compare:


However Arnett (1) lists S. barberi as length 12-15 mm, much larger than this lacewing, so I'm not sure. Note added 1/30/21. See comments below--this was likely a misreading of the reference by me.
Compare also S. amiculus (left) and S. occidentalis (right):


Further assistance would be appreciated, of course. (See comments below--thanks, John!)

Images of this individual: tag all
Sympherobius amiculus Sympherobius amiculus Sympherobius amiculus

Regarding Size
I see there are no comments about the relative sizes of the two species mentioned in your original post. In the paper by John Oswald in the links section, S. amicus is listed with a range of forewing lengths 3.43-5.65mm, while S. barberi is listed with a range of forewing lengths 3.56-5.69. In other words, there size ranges have a large overlap. That size of 12-15mm for S. barberi simply seems wrong. That seems more like a size for Micromus.

 
good point, thanks!
That might have been an error in Arnett, or that might have been my error, reading it as body length when Arnett said, or at least meant, wingspan.
Dr. Oswald did identify this as S. amiculus.
Thanks for your comments. I will leave the original caption, but add a note to see comments.

 
Someone suggested one of my S
Someone suggested one of my S. barberi observations on iNat should have been identified as S. amiculus instead. I've not found a good illustration of the essential difference in wing venation between the two. Rereading Oswald, I see he says, "Radial cross vein absent, very rarely joinging R1+2+3 to R4+5." I find illustrations of S. amiculus which shows a cross vein connection R2+3 to R4. That cross vein is absent in my observation. Is that the cross vein being referred to by Oswald? More distally, there is a cross vein connecting R3 to R4 both in the illustration and in my observation where I have added an illustration.

 
outside of my expertise!
Interesting comments, but I do not have anything useful to add. The ID here was based on Dr. Oswald's expertise, and not mine.

Moved/thanks
Moved from Sympherobius. Thanks for your help, John!

#461214 Identification – Sympherobius amiculus
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