KEYWORTH
My fourth garden Shoulder-striped Wainscot this morning:
And a peculiarity from Tuesday morning’s trap; a Snakefly (Raphidiidae).
They have an elongated prothorax which enables them to raise their head in a snake-like manner. There are four British species but not much help available to tell them apart.
Snakeflies are classed as a true bug (Hemiptera – Homoptera) and closely related to Lacewings and Alderflies in the family Neuroptera. It seems though that Snakeflies are very rarely encountered as the adults spend most of their time in the tree canopy whilst the larvae live under the bark. NBN Atlas https://species.nbnatlas.org/species/NBNSYS010000601 has only 286 records of X. xanthostigma nationally whilst Eakring Birds http://www.eakringbirds.com/eakringbirds2/insectinfocusxanthostigmaxanthostigma.htm knows of four Nottinghamshire records, the most recent coming from Attenborough NWT.