Small Crane Flies Mating
These crane flies were mating next to our porch light on August 4, 2023. I think the somewhat larger one near the top of the picture is the female, and the smaller one near the bottom is the male. They were small for crane flies, but a bit bigger than the average mosquito.
Here is a closer view of them from more off to the side.
They have quite large eyes compared to the size of their head, and a white ring around them, with relatively short antennae. Here, let’s get a bit closer of a look of first the male,
and then the female:
They have a fairly large throax with a deep v-shaped crease (or suture) on the back, which I understand indicates that they are in fact crane flies, and not midges.
These look to me like most likely limoniid crane flies, likely in the tribe Eriopterini. The closest match looks to be the genus Cheilotrichia, which live in this approximate area and come out around the end of July/beginning of August.
Here’s another one that appears to be a lone male of the same species.
Like other crane flies, these (a) are completely harmless to humans, they not only don’t bite us, I think they can’t bite us even if they wanted to; (b) have aquatic larvae, and so they tend to occur in the same places as mosquitos; (c) are unlike mosquitos in that they are drawn to lights, while mosquitos are not; and (d) are probably the reason that people think that light-trap mosquito traps work, even though they do not.
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Excellent photos as usual. What are those nodules sticking out midway through their torsos?
Those would be the “halteres”. They used to be a second pair of wings in the distant ancestors of flies, but they have been reduced to basically “balls on sticks” and are used as a sort of gyroscope to improve stability in flight.