My Bug Babies

I have been excitedly looking forward to some impending babies at the Red House Garden.

See all those eggs hanging down from those threads?  Those precious eggs hold what will be Green Lacewing babies.  They are hung on threads to keep them from predators.  The threads are made of mucus that has hardened in the air.
(Nothing like good 'ole mucus to do the job, huh?)

Green Lacewing eggs

The Momma Lacewing bug has carefully chosen her site for her eggs - on my milkweed plant, right next to lots of available food... Maybe you can see the reason why I am so anxious for the eggs to hatch?  (Hint:  the food is bright yellow and moving.)

Yay, they've hatched!  It's now a beautiful bouncing Lacewing larvae!!  

Okay, so maybe it's a face only a mother could love, but I'm still rejoicing:

The Lacewing babies are eating all the aphids that were attacking my milkweed plant.

Lacewing larvae eating aphid

Yum, yum..

Now you can see why the Green Lacewing mother chose my milkweed plant to lay her eggs on - it has lots and lots of baby food on it!

One lacewing egg and lots of yellow aphids
I sense a feast coming..

The only problem is that Lacewing larvae will sometimes show bad manners and eat all the nice butterfly eggs and little caterpillars that might also be sharing a leaf with it - they really don't care what it is, as long as they can eat it.  

I don't know what kind of caterpillar you are, but now might be a good time to exit the milkweed.

The Lacewing babies will eat lots of yummy aphids (around 200 a week) for two to three weeks and then spin a cocoon and pupate, finally emerging as an adult Green Lacewing.

Adult Green Lacewing

In which case the cycle will start again, hopefully until all of my aphids are gone!