Meadow Scorpionfly size reference, Heeswijk-Dinther, Netherlands
Resisting my natural tendency to crop every photo for once to demonstrate how small scorpionflies are. Here it is holding on to a dried out straw of grass.
I'll also use this post for a fun fact about scorpionflies. Males win the hearts of females by bringing them caught prey, the bigger the better. Some males, however, aren't very good at it. What they lack in hunting skills, they compensate with some very clever behavior. The incompetent males mimic a female, and await for other males to bring them prey. As soon as this happens, and the prey is considered large enough, the incompetent male flies off with the gift and takes it to a real female, impressing her with somebody else's work.
Panorpa vulgaris is a very common species of Scorpionfly in Northwest Europe. For a long time it was taken to be a synonym of Panorpa communis, but in the 70's of the last century it was demonstrated that the two are reproductivly isolated. Panorpa vulgaris is the most thermophile of the northern European Scorpionsflies and can more readily be found in open sunny meadows whereas the others prefer more shaded environments.
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