DESCRIPTION: Adult green lacewing is pale green with slender body and delicate, long, green wings. They reach 1/2 to 3/4 inches long; eggs are white and are laid on slender stalks on the undersides of leaves. Larvae are yellowish-gray with brown marks, tufts of hair and long jaws. Three to four generations mature each year. Don't confuse the good lacewing with the bad lacebug, which sucks sap from the undersides of leaves, especially on the azaleas in this area. The lacebug has lace-like wings and a square-shaped body.

BENEFITS: Lacewing is a good bug that eats bad bugs such as aphids, mealybugs and spider mites; it will attack almost any soft-bodied insect and its eggs. That's what Integrated Pest Management is mostly about - letting biological controls such as the beneficial bugs take care of most of the problem bugs. If there isn't a reserve of food for the good bugs when they emerge at the beginning of warm weather, they may not survive. Most insects don't last more than a couple of weeks once they get to the adult stage anyway. It's the hungry larvae that do most of the damage to plants. Lots of adult insects have reduced, if any, chewing mouth parts; they merely have siphons to gather nectar or water.

``Survival isn't about being the biggest and baddest on the block,'' says Bill Dimock, a Newport News extension agent who specializes in entomology or the study of insects.

``Survival is mating, laying eggs and passing on genes to the next generation. If you see ladybugs and green lacewings, just feel comfortable that you have enough of them out there.''