Crane Fly, A Giant Mosquito Look Alike

Every fall the giant mosquito look alike hovers around our house - outside of course, and sometimes inside. I am sure that every house in Aurora gets them too. But, I don't recall seeing them when I moved into Aurora about 11 years ago. Anyway, I been calling it a giant mosquito; however, they are not even from the mosquito family - they are from a fly family and are called crane flies. But it looks like mosquito. How they qualify them, I don't know, I am not an expert, but? Well not buts, someone knew what they were doing. Few years ago I was listening to the radio, and the crane fly came up in the conversation. The lady announcer also didn't know anything about them, just kept saying how giant they were, and she gave them a name - a 'hamburger mosquito'. A hamburger mosquito? - I thought it was very funny then, but for the longest time me and my husband would call them that too, a hamburger mosquito. Do not ask why? It seemed normal once we adapted the name.



Now, me and you know that this is a crane fly. You can look up outside of this post and read more on the wikipedia or other source about them. However, there are few interesting facts that I will mention. Interestingly, there are at least 14,000 different species of crane flies. Yes, that many, and I have only seen one - at least then 13,999 to go. They are giant as you already seen them. They don't bite - that's what I like, everything harmless is good around here. They are slow-flying insects, that I know, my 16 month old son can catch them, don't ask what happens after. They are attracted to light - don't like that, but how about all other bugs, no mystery here. They feed on nectar or not at all. Yes they only live to mate and then die, and only about 2 days. Very focused life there. But they don't know that after they die, they help to break down dead leaves and stems in the streams to keep the water healthy for the fish, and other wildlife. This concludes that obviously they like to live around water. Crane flies belong to the family Tipulidae of the order Diptera - meaningless to me, just classification.