Impressive critters keep presenting themselves, and I can’t resist sharing them.  I was at Pinnacleview Equipment, my local tractor dealer, this afternoon picking up a flail mower (much more on that soon) when I saw this gal on one of the accessory boxes.

Typically when I find a strange and charismatic bug,  I contact my friend Jenn for identification help; in this case, I googled “giant bug with wings and pincers” and the first result said that this is an eastern dobsonfly (Corydalus cornutus) of the female persuasion.  The males have much larger mandibles — so large that they can’t do much with them — but the females have the more effective bite.  I admit that I haven’t done any careful tests to confirm that this is true, though.

I first found the dobsonfly as we were loading boxes onto my truck, so I was a little surprised that it hung on during the 30 minute drive home at highway speeds.  But then I noticed an egg beside her in one of the photos (in the crook of the W below her).

I’m wondering if I will find a whole egg mass on the box tomorrow morning, along with a dead adult who has completed her work for the species.

I was very curious about the origin of this insect’s name, wondering if there was a Victorian entomologist named Dobson.  The etymology is a bit more obscure, it seems, with the name likely bestowed by fishermen who value these insects as bait.