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:
“Long accustomed to the use of European manufactures, [the Cherokee Indians] are as incapable of returning to their habits of skins and furs as we are, and find their wants the less tolerable as they are occasioned by a war [the American Revolution] the event of which is scarcely interesting to them.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“...it has been a joy to live, at last, under an Administration which—stumbling forward and backward, colliding with all the habits of government, all the habits of business—has still endeavored to make the happiness of man, woman and child its chief consideration.”
—Sarah N. Cleghorn (1876–1959)
“Varis Shah says habits don’t die even if we are cut into pieces.”
—Varis Shah (18th cent.)