Mosquito hawks neither hunt mosquitoes nor sting you
Crane flies are called mosquito hawks and mosquito eaters, yet adults cannot kill or eat other insects, and many never feed at all in their brief ten-to-fifteen-day lives. Nor are they venomous: they cannot bite. Their larvae, called leatherjackets, once scarred the pitch at Lord’s.
Crane flies make up the superfamily Tipuloidea, with four living families: Tipulidae, the large crane flies, with about 4,351 species; Limoniidae, about 10,786 and possibly not a natural group; Pediciidae, the hairy-eyed crane flies, about 498; and Cylindrotomidae, about 67. Winter crane flies are different enough to sit in a separate family. More than 15,500 species have been described, most of them by one man, C. P. Alexander, who named 10,890 species and subspecies between 1910 and 1981.
They first appeared about 245 million years ago in the Middle Triassic, making them among the oldest known flies. They are found worldwide, richest in the tropics but also common far north and high up. Adults look like oversized mosquitoes, with slim bodies and stilt-like legs that snap off easily; wingspans usually run 1 to 6.5 cm, though some Holorusia reach 11 cm.
Adults live only 10 to 15 days, mating soon after emerging, sometimes in flight, and females often lay eggs at once in wet soil or algae mats. The larvae live almost anywhere damp, from marshes and rotting wood to lawns and even salt water, mostly eating decaying plants, though some prey on other invertebrates. They enrich soil and feed spiders, fish, birds, and mammals.
Two European species, now invasive in the United States, damage crop roots. In 1935 ground staff at Lord’s Cricket Ground collected and burned thousands of leatherjackets that had left bald patches on the pitch. The legend that crane flies are the world’s most venomous insects is false.
Source: Crane fly
