
Chrysotropia ciliata larvae
This is a very interesting larvae. Its a lacewing larvae but this little guy is apparently voracious. It not only eats other insects, it uses body parts and other oddities it finds around as armor! You can see on the right side parts of exoskeletons and near South East Center, what look to be chocolate rice puffs (way to small to be real rice puffs).
Lacewings court by 'tremulation', a low frequency sound produced by vibrating their abdomens, which in turn causes the substrate they are standing on to vibrate. The males and females will take turns tremulating; this duet is an essential prerequisite for mating.
The common green lacewing was thought to be one species, but recent research has shown that they are several closely-related species, which can only be distinguished by their courtship songs.
Lacewings are common insects in British gardens and are easy to recognise by their transparent lace-like wings, which are nearly twice as long as the abdomen. Lacewing larvae are voracious consumers of aphids and insect eggs. There are several British lacewing species, which are often divided by colour, into green (14 species) or brown (29 species) forms. The giant lacewing (Osymlus fulvicephalus), with a wingspan of up to 5 cm, is often found near streams and rivers. They are fairly slow moving and would make a ready meal for a foraging bird, so are rarely seen flying during the day. Instead of feeding on aphids, the larvae of the giant lacewing are semi-aquatic, and feed on the larvae of midges and other small species. Lacewings can be encouraged to remain in your garden by providing homes for their winter hibernation, which can be bought from some garden centres. They will be ready to lay eggs and help to control your aphids when they emerge from hibernation in the spring.

Chrysotropia ciliata (Wesmael, 1841) is a species of "Green Lacewing" (family Chrysopidae). The scientific name (ciliata) refers to the long hairs set on the costal vein at the front of the wings. The larvae of this species are of the debris carrying kind, a feature shared with a few other genera but the larvae of Ch. ciliata cover (almost) their entire body with debris, whereas the larvae of Pseudomallada for example only cover roughly the rear half.

comments (6)
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2859/9393832034_f90ca32962_z.jpg Posted 10 years ago
Just stumbled on this one (well, - again - saw it some time ago too, but let it slide ...)
Excellent bits of description, but the larva itself certainly is not Micromus variegatus or any other Hemerobiidae for that matter. The Hemerobiidae all have "naked" larvae. A few genera (but not all) of Chrysopidae have the debris-carrying larvae shown here and supposedly only one with a garbage heap covering more than 80% of the body: Chrysotropia ciliata
Your shot "from below" (same larva I suppose?) confirms this, as we can just see the shape of the hairy warts carrying the debris: