Lacewings are well known insects and usually recognisable as being such to those members of the public, even those with little knowledge of natural history.

Many people often presume that there is just a single species of Green Lacewing and confidently identify it as such. On the face of it correct, but there are a number of green-coloured Lacewings. Their identification is not always that straight forward, but not as difficult as you might have previously thought. A specimen is usually required though and good photographs from all angles helps greatly.

The lack of any large number of Lacewing records from within Nottinghamshire (VC56), must surely be down to the belief of most naturalists that their identification is difficult and that the potential number of similar species is high.......its not. In our own recording of the county's invertebrates, we (like many others) have really left Lacewings well alone. From our own persective, this was most definitely by believing there were hundreds of species, most similar to each other and most in need of dissection to determine to species level. For this reason alone, when we submitted nearly 53,000 records to the NBN Atlas in June 2018, only two of them were of Lacewings.

But things are not as bad as many (including ourselves until recently) would believe. The UK species list actually only comprises around 70 species of Lacewing and most can be keyed out from the keys provided in Colin Plant's AIDGAP publication 'A key to the adults of British lacewings and their allies', © Field Studies Council, 2016.

J.W. Carr's 1916 book 'The Invertebrate Fauna of Nottinghamshire' published by J.& H. Bell Ltd, Nottingham, provides historical records for a total of 28 species. Most of these were recorded by a very small number of naturalists, who were active in the county around the late 1800's and early 1900's. The most active Lacewing recorders were Lady Robinson (producing records from the Clumber Park and Worksop areas), J.T. Houghton (Shireoaks) and the Rev. Alfred Thornley (North/South Leverton and Treswell Wood).

We have to assume that all identifications were correct and in Carr's opening statement to the Order, he thanks 'Mr Kenneth J. Morton of Edinburgh, for his constant and valuable help in the determination of these insects'. There have been frequent changes in the nomenclature of many species, with very few of those names in Carr's book still in use today. Where names have changed, we have included that used by Carr within the historical account for that species.

Listed in Carr as Chrysopa vulgaris (Schneider), the discovery that there are actually four species involved, render Nottinghamshire's historical records of Chrysoperla carnea obsolete. But for completeness, we have reproduced the records listed in Carr's book. These records include Shireoaks (Houghton), South Leverton (Thornley) and Stapleford (Dawson).

Carr's 1916 book 'The Invertebrate Fauna of Nottinghamshire', left us with a county list containing 27 species and as an example of just how poor our recording of this Order has been in the last hundred years, just six species have since been added to the Nottinghamshire list.

Now standing at a total of 33, the following species have been recorded since the publication of Carr's book. These include Chrysopa commata, Chrysoperla lucasina, Chrysotropia ciliata, Dichochrysa flavifrons, Coniopteryx borealis and Micromus variegatus.

Rothamsted Insect Traps operated for a number of years from Sherwood Forest Country Park and Sutton Bonnington, provided Nottinghamshire with Chrysopa commata, Dichochrysa flavifrons and Coniopteryx borealis new to the county.

There is so much still to be learned about the true distribution and accurate number of species within the county, for anyone wishing to take on the challenge of a more specialist invertebrate Order such as Neuroptera. So much of the county's recorder emphasis is continuously placed on Lepidoptera, Coleoptera and Odonata, that those 'lesser orders' get increasingly left out of the biodiversity equasion when sites are surveyed for their invertebrate value.

Actually how little we know of what is found at most of our reserves is astounding, and the modern naturalist has a role to play in considerably increasing awareness of the rare species found on Nottinghamshire's reserves and green spaces belongng to those less-studied Orders. Anyone wishing to take on the challenge of adding to our knowledge of Nottinghamshire Neuroptera, would be making considerable advances in our knowledge of their status and distribution. Its important work waiting for someone.