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Don’t kill that large mosquito: It’s just a crane fly looking for sex | TribLIVE.com
Murrysville Star

Don’t kill that large mosquito: It’s just a crane fly looking for sex

Mary Ann Thomas
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Rob Amen | Tribune-Review
Crane fly
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Courtesy of Ainsley Seago | Carnegie Museum of Natural History
A tray of pinned crane fly specimens, Nephrotoma eucera, prepared by retired Carnegie Museum of Natural History Curator Dr. Chen W. Young.
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Courtesy of Benjamin McGraw | Penn State University
Before it flies: Juveniile crane flies when they are maggots or larvae and also known as leatherjackets.

They won’t bite you, but crane flies — which look like large mosquitos — are out in full force, reportedly covering a putting green at a Pittsburgh area golf course and maybe cavorting in your backyard.

Yes, cavorting. With only two weeks to live as adults on the wing, some common species of crane flies have recently emerged. They’re mostly in moist, grassy areas mating.

“When the ground gets moist during autumn, the crane flies have a giant sex party for two weeks,” said Ainsley Seago, curator of invertebrate zoology at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. “It’s the highest calling of species.”

Then they die.

But not before producing the next generation of crane flies.

Large numbers of crane flies are currently conspicuous in Western Pennsylvania, said Benjamin McGraw, an associate professor of turfgrass science at Penn State University.

McGraw has seen an uptick in two invasive crane fly species in the state and the Northeastern U.S., which he attributes possibly to the influence of wet summers in 2018 and 2019.

Large numbers can emerge at golf courses. McGraw received a report of a swarm covering a putting green in a Pittsburgh-area golf course this week.

“They fly into your face when you ride in the golf cart,” he said. The insect can be a nuisance if there are large numbers. It’s when they are younger, when some species feed on plant roots, that they can cause brown spots in grassy areas, McGraw said.

It’s when the crane fly is harmless — when it’s on the wing — that people mistake it for a large mosquito and kill it.

The crane fly is long bodied, long-legged, and “a slow flyer, while the mosquito is small and nimble and wants to land on us to drink our blood,” Seago said.

Adult crane flies can be numerous in moist woodlands or along streams, according to Chen W. Young, retired curator of Invertebrate Zoology for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Young’s research and his collection of crane flies are world-renowned.

“They are a significant food supply for birds, frogs, spiders and other insects,” Young wrote in a Carnegie Museum of Natural History publication.

There are more than 1,500 species of crane flies in North America and more than 350 species in the state, according to Young.

“They are misunderstood,” Seago said. “It’s a gentle insect that wants to bumble around and make love.”

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