At Home: Daddy Long Legs

Crane fly adults only live for a couple of days and do not usually feed. Their larval stages are usually aquatic. Which accounts for you finding these in your kitchen sink attracted to your damp dishcloth or in your bathtub. These flies easily lose their long spindly legs if handled which makes their people squeemish of recusing them? There is nothing like trying to help one out and being left with a handful of legs!

Being a larger scaled insect size, you can study the “halteres” organs more easily. Halteres function as balancing gyroscopes and are located just behind the first set of wings on the thorax. This large crane fly is sometimes mistaken for a giant mosquito due to conspicuous mouthparts. In England, we call them Daddy Long Legs, not to be confused with Harvestman spiders which also carry this common name, in other parts of the world.

Adult crane flies feed on nectar or they do not feed at all. Once they become adults, most crane fly species exist as adults only to mate and die. Their larvae, called "leatherjackets", "leatherbacks", "leatherback bugs" or "leatherjacket slugs" because of the way they move, consume roots (such as those of turf grass) and other vegetation, in some cases causing damage to plants.

In 1935, Lord's Cricket Ground in London was among the venues affected by leatherjackets: several thousand were collected by ground staff and burned, because they caused bald patches on the wicket and the pitch took unaccustomed spin for much of the season..(Wikipedia)

An amazing insect with a collection of elaborate flying intruments attached to its anatomy. Despite its haphazard and out of control flying skills,that leave us all ducking and screaming in its path. Up close, its forgivably fascinating .....until it moves! ......x