Scorpionfly (Panorpa latipennis) - Attack of the Flying Scorpion

Scorpionfly (Panorpa latipennis)
Photo by Brad Sylvester, copyright 2011, all rights reserved

There are some very strange and interesting looking bugs in the world, and some of them live in my yard. This scorpionfly is just one example. From the photos, you can tell that it’s a male, because that is not a stinger… There are many kinds of scorpionflies, and the National Audubon Society Field Guide doesn’t even try to list them all, instead opting for a single listing under the generic Sorpionfly (panorpa spp.) I understand that there are 100,000 or so North American insects, but I’m definitely in the market for a new insect field guide. There are simply too many pertinent species omitted from the Audubon Guide, although it does have good information about scorpionflies in general.

·         Slideshow of the male scorpionfly (Panorpa latipennis)

At any rate, the scorpionfly in question, in this case, seems to be of the species Panorpa latipennis, based on the ID photos at this link on buggguide.net, but without being able to find good comparison photos of all 40 North American species of the scorpionfly, I can’t be 100 percent certain. I’m going with Panorpa latipennis until someone convinces me otherwise (I look forward to your comments below).

·         Don’t forget to check the Master List of Animals that Live in my Yard.

As you might guess from the scorpionfly’s enlarged tube mouth, these insects eat fruit, nectar and dead or immobile insects. The adults aren’t big hunters, but surprisingly, to me at least, the scorpionfly larvae hunt more than the adults. They catch insects and eat organic matter around the small burrow they dig in which to live.

The larva will stay in the burrow overwinter. Like some of the other insect species I’ve already noted, the larvae of this species are certainly too shallow in the ground during the New England winter to avoid sub-freezing temperatures so I’d love to see what happens to them in the cold. Does the bug freeze and thaw, or does it have some anti-freeze protein in their system that keeps them liquid enough to avoid major cold damage. Technology Review (not my go to source for insect information, but a site I use regularly for other things) noted back in 2000 that insect antifreeze proteins seem to be 100 times more active than those found in fish. Given that there are some fish that regularly survive being frozen into a block of ice in the Arctic winter, that’s quite an accomplishment.

The larva pupates in that same burrow, and the adult scorpionfly emerges in the early summer.  This one was photographed in my yard on the ides of July.

As dangerous as the appendage from which the scorpionfly gets its name looks, it is pretty harmless. It is often eaten by other insects, birds and the usual insect eaters. The male specimen that I found in my yard was not a great flyer. It flew short distances (less than four or five feet at a time) landing squarely on various leaves for several seconds or more with each “hop.” For most determined predators, that wouldn’t be good enough.

“Attack of the Flying Scorpion”

Although I am committed to recording every animal species that lands in my yard, common and uncommon, I particularly enjoy finding odd-looking creatures. This one would be a candidate for one of those old 1950’s atomic scare movies where an ordinary bug is exposed to radiation and becomes a giant monster terrorizing remote villagers. I imagine it would have been called “Attack of the Flying Scorpion.” Of course, those who know that the scorpionfly doesn’t really carry a poisonous stinger at all, and that only the males have this particular appendage, might wonder just why they were attacking people…  

By the way, over at Examiner.com I just posted a video and some pictures of an endangered Blanding’s turtle laying eggs that I discovered about a half mile down the road from my yard. It’s not posted on this blog, because it wasn’t in the yard itself, but it’s interesting nevertheless.

Quick facts about the Scorpionfly (Panorpa latipennis)

Lifecycle: Scorpionflies live about a year. The eggs are laid on the forest floor in a small mass. Although I could find no detailed information about when, I’d guess eggs are laid sometime during the month of July in the New England region, maybe a bit earlier in the north and on into Canada. Eggs hatch and the larva grows, overwintering in a ground burrow. In the spring it resumes activity, pupating and becoming an adult. Adults emerge around May, possibly a bit later.

Habitat: Forest and forest-edge

Diet:  adult scorpionflies- nectar, fruit, dead insects; larva – insects organic matter

When the scorpionfly is here: all year round

Range: The Panorpa latipennis sparsely populates New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Ontario according to Bugguide.net, but it must be present to some extent in the intervening areas as well. Perhaps it is just being recorded as one of the other variants there.

IUCN Redlist status:  Not listed