Earlier this evening, a friend mailed me a picture of a day-flying moth he'd photographed while hiking in the Alps. I didn't have a clue what it was, other than guessing that it was probably one of the huge and extremely varied family of geometrid moths. After about 45 minutes of searching the Internet, however, I managed to come up with the identification! Spurred on by this success, I decided to finally have a go at identifying this gorgeous thing I'd photographed in Cyprus six years ago and which has remained unidentified ever since.
Back then, I'd presumed it was also a day-flying moth or perhaps some weird wasp, yet it didn't take me long at all to discover its true identity.
This big-eyed bug goes by the name of Macaronius Owlfly and is not a moth at all since the owlflies belong to the family of net-winged insects including lacewings and antlions. I'd never even heard of them until now but, if this one is anything to go by, I'd certainly like to see some more.
