A few days ago at night while reading, we saw a big insect helplessly flapping around on the wall, attracted by the light. It superficially looked like a dragonfly but host immediately recognized it as the imago of an antlion. We rarely see one every other year, but this one turned out to be SSS rare. And it had a problem. First I thought its wings were crippled but it turned out its hindwings were caught in a spiderweb and tied together. It tried to fly with its forewings only but that didn't work.
Luckily it came across me who is not only the Savior of the Earthworm and the Stag Beetle, but also the Antlion.
In contrast to the nightmarish larvae that make any horror movie look ridiculous, the imagines are frail and weak, much weaker than the dragonflies they superficially resemble. That greatly helped catching and fixating the patient. Host got two preparation needles and a razor blade and was able to remove the sturdy spiderweb that was wrapped around the hindwings with minor wing damage (see tip of right hindwing). After taking a few photos, we released the antlion back into the night and it slowly fluttered away never to be seen again.
Looking at the photos, it turned out this was not the usual antlion found here. We have a sheltered dry place under a pine tree in the garden where the funnel-shaped traps of its larvae can be seen. No, this guy had much darker wing pattern and was identified as Dendroleon pantherinus, the Panther-Treelion. While first described in 1787, very little is known about these animals. Their larvae hide in decaying wood and over the centuries only a handful were ever discovered! The species is widely distributed in the Mediterranean but always rare. Very few have ever been seen in SW-Germany. May be the first recorded sighting in Munich.