They look like giant mosquitoes, or daddy-longlegs with wings, and they fly like crazy bumper-car drivers, bouncing off walls, each other, ceilings and light sources.
\nBut they\u2019re nothing to be afraid of, says Chris Conlan, the County\u2019s supervising vector ecologist.
\nThey\u2019re crane flies \u2014 also known as “mosquito hawks,” “skeeter-eaters,” and “daddy longlegs.”
\nConlan said they\u2019re harmless to people and that this is the time of year you usually spot them in San Diego County, after the rains and as spring temperatures start to warm up. They\u2019re big for bugs. Their bodies sometimes reach an inch or more in length, but they can look even bigger because of their six, long, stilt-like legs.
\nConlan said there\u2019s an easy way to tell if the bug you\u2019re looking at is a crane fly. If it\u2019s bigger than a dime, he said, then it\u2019s too big to be a mosquito and it\u2019s probably a crane fly. Conlan said among bug experts crane flies are also called “five-legged flies,” because their spindly legs are so fragile it\u2019s hard to find one with all six legs intact.
\nWhatever you call them, Conlan said people may be seeing more crane flies than they usually do this spring \u2014 and lots of other bugs \u2014 because we just had our rainiest winter in years.
\nFew bugs have generated as many myths and misconceptions as the crane fly.
\nConlan said here\u2019s what you need to know:
\nCrane flies are not giant mosquitoes
\nConlan said crane flies are related to mosquitoes, but they are not mosquitoes. They don\u2019t bite; they don\u2019t suck blood. In fact, most adult crane flies don\u2019t eat at all. Those that do, Conlan said, drink nectar.
\nCrane flies can\u2019t transmit disease
\nThey\u2019re not a public health issue like mosquitoes or other vectors, which are the main concern for Conlan and the County\u2019s Department of Environmental Health.
\nCrane flies do not eat mosquitoes
\nNicknames like “mosquito hawks” and “skeeter-eaters” are colorful but totally inaccurate. Their wormlike larvae generally live in wet or moist soil, feeding off decaying organic matter. Some even live underwater. Adult flies don\u2019t live long, about 10 days at the most \u2014 unless they\u2019re gobbled up before that by birds, lizards or other creatures.
\nConlan said crane flies are actually around all year long, but we notice them more in spring because it\u2019s their peak season, after winter rains create the best breeding conditions for them.
\nBecause their populations are high, and because they\u2019re attracted to lights, this is also the time of year they can often get into houses through open doors and windows. Which can lead unsuspecting people to spontaneously break into the bug dance \u2014 that crazy, ducking, hopping, waving your hands around your head dance \u2014 that we revert to when trying to shoo away an unexpected critter.
\n“It\u2019s kind of like the spider dance, only with less finger action as if trying to pull the (spider) webbing off your face,” Conlan said with a chuckle.
\nOnce again, crane flies can\u2019t hurt you. They\u2019re ungainly, but they\u2019re harmless.
\nBut, if they really bug you \u2014 pun intended \u2014 one thing you can do is turn off your front-door and porch lights, limit your outside lighting or retrofit them with yellow bug lights. (If your front-porch light is on the same circuit as the lights in front of your house and you want to keep them on, you can just un-screw the front-porch bulb) That way, fewer crane flies and bugs will be drawn to the light, where they can fly into your house when you open the door to get in.
\nIn any case, Conlan said that because of all the rain we had this winter, this is likely to be a banner year for bugs.
\n“This is something that people are going to have to kind of expect this year,” he said. “You\u2019re going to see a lot more of these things as the weather warms up.” Gig Conaughton is a communications specialist with the County of San Diego Communications Office.\u00a0<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
They look like giant mosquitoes, or daddy-longlegs with wings, and they fly like crazy bumper-car drivers, bouncing off walls, each other, ceilings and light sources. But they\u2019re nothing to be afraid of, says Chris Conlan, the County\u2019s supervising vector ecologist. They\u2019re crane flies \u2014 also known as “mosquito hawks,” “skeeter-eaters,” and “daddy longlegs.” Conlan said […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":281643,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11561","_seopress_titles_title":"Giant mosquito? Mosquito-eater? Nope, it\u2019s a crane fly!","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[12360,11551,11561],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-281645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-duplicate","category-news","category-peninsula-beacon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}