Habits
The larva resembles a caterpillar and grows up to 20 millimetres (0.79 in) long. it has three pairs of thoracic legs and eight pairs of prolegs.
The adult is seen between May and September, and can be usually found in hedgerows and patches of nettle. They eat dead insects (although they sometimes eat live aphids), sometimes taking them from spider webs.
Although fully winged, the adults rarely fly very far and spend much of their time crawling on vegetation in damp, shaded places near water and along hedgerows. Eggs are laid in soil annually and the larvae both scavenge and pupate there.
Read more about this topic: Panorpa Communis
Famous quotes containing the word habits:
“Always too eager for the future, we
Pick up bad habits of expectancy.
Something is always approaching; every day
Till then we say....”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“Movies are one of the bad habits that corrupted our century. Of their many sins, I offer as the worst their effect on the intellectual side of the nation. It is chiefly from that viewpoint I write of them—as an eruption of trash that has lamed the American mind and retarded Americans from becoming a cultured people.”
—Ben Hecht (1893–1964)
“It contributes greatly towards a man’s moral and intellectual health, to be brought into habits of companionship with individuals unlike himself, who care little for his pursuits, and whose sphere and abilities he must go out of himself to appreciate.”
—Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864)