Yep, you read it right - there really is such a thing as a doodlebug. Walk along the sandy trails of southern Jersey, and you have a good chance of spotting their traps, funnel-shaped divots. Also known as the antlion, they are masters at catching their favorite food - ants!A doodlebug constructs its pitfall traps with great precision, walking in circles to excavate the loose sand. Once finished, it buries itself at the bottom of the cone, with its jaws protruding. And then it waits... A hapless ant who wanders into the trap will qui
ckly slide down the soft sand toward the center of the cone, where it will meet its end.The doodlebug is the larval form of an insect that looks a lot like a damselfly, but is actually in the same order as lacewings. The adult can fly, but not very well, and it feeds on nectar and pollen. So when you put the whole life cycle together, it's an omnivore - carnivorous as a larva, and herbivorous as an adult.
So why's it called a doodlebug? As it crawls along the sandy ground looking for a place to make a trap, it tends to walk in circles and swirls. Its trail looks much like a doodle - the kind of squiggly, curvy drawing you scribble while bored or daydreaming.
