John Henry Comstock and James Needham might have been winging it when they first imagined a system for insect venation.
These American entomologists worked together at Cornell and, after a lifetime of study, developed their self-named Comstock Needham System. This classification method provided a scheme for describing the veins on insect wings — venation.
These men must have had a field day describing the black horned green lacewing. This stunning lime green insect has exceptional venation and it is impossible not to be mesmerized by their large delicate translucent wings.
These wings carry the insect well. Large and powerful, they provide agility to escape predators. Lacewings can even evade echo-locating bats by closing their wings and dropping to the ground. They can hear those silent flyers coming by using their drum-like tympanal organs at the base of their forewings.
Though seemingly a dainty denizen, black horned green lacewings are powerful predators. Distinctive wings are not their only vibrant virtue. In a different vein, this lacewing is endowed with a mandible that would perturb almost any prey.
Described as a double sickle, or ice-tong like, the adult and larval mouthparts are long and slender with hollow grooves. The hollow grooves serve as straws and syringes, injecting saliva to predigest prey and sucking in plant and animal juices. Insects such as mites, caterpillars, aphids and amphipods make up much of this beast’s diet during its larval period. Pollen, nectar and honeydew (which is a sugary liquid excreted by some insects) are mainly consumed by the adult insects.
Black horned green lacewings, Chrysopoda nigricornis also called stinkflies, begin their lives as an egg laid at the end of a slender thread on the underside of a leaf. Each female can lay up to two hundred of these stalked sacs, which will hatch into a very different looking larvae in just under a week.
At this stage, the lacewing gets downright scary. With a completely dissimilar look, one might not realize that the larva will metamorphose and become such a beauty. Alligator-like is one description, but Texas A&M goes even further, calling the larvae “nature’s Freddy Krueger,” for its murderous slice and dice mandibles.
These eating machines devour their prey, consuming up to one thousand aphids in its larval lifetime. No surprise that other nicknames include aphid lions or aphid wolves. And they are fast eaters, dissolving a prey’s organs in just ninety seconds.
Which is why these insects are valued in your garden and for agricultural pest control. Lacewings eat the insects that damage crops and they thus reduce reliance on chemicals for pest control. Many gardeners and farmers go so far as to invite them in by planting Coreopsis, Cosmo, Helianthus, and leave Dandelions to entice green lacewings to come for dinner.
Consider them beauty and the beast for their angelic adult and lacerating larval stages. And invite them to sup in your garden because they might just be the best protection for your potatoes, tomatoes, broccoli, beets, apples, pears and grapes. If you are lucky enough to have them as your garden guests, the survival of your fruit and vegetables may be on their beautiful wings and a prayer.
Suzan Bellincampi is director of the Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary in Edgartown, and author of Martha’s Vineyard: A Field Guide to Island Nature and The Nature of Martha’s Vineyard.
This article appears in June 26, 2026.