Family: Micropezidae
Subfamily: Taeniapterinae
Length: About 10 mm
While in a close-up photograph this species may not look very ant-like, when seen in person it looks and acts very much like an ant. Part of the act is to hold the front legs up like antennae, so as to have nice long ant-like antennae instead of short fly-like antennae. The individual shown in these two photos seems to be alternately resting its left and right front leg.
Taeniaptera trivittata is found from Michigan and New York to Florida and Texas. One of the more interesting records is that reported by Sparks et al. (1986) who collected one at lights on an oil rig 32 km from the Louisiana coast.
Outside the deep South, adults are most likely to be found from May to August.
T. trivittata is one of only two Nearctic species in the genus; other species live in the Neotropics.
