I've had to deal with huge swarms of these things every summer for the few years I've lived a mile away from a lake. I assumed they were mosquitoes until recently.
Is it some kind of midge fly? How can you tell? If I were to make an uneducated guess, I'd say it's not a mosquito because there's not a straight proboscis.
26 Comments
Treczoks@lemmy.world · 40 pts · 61d
BTW, you don't need a lake to breed them. Any standing water will do. Rainwater barrels, cow troughs, ditches...
CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de · 15 pts · 61d
In fact they don’t like lakes. Too much movement and predator.
cRazi_man@europe.pub · 6 pts · 61d
If you got mosquito problems then I feel bad for you son. I got 99 problems but a ditch ain't one.
sem@piefed.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 61d
Itch me!
Treczoks@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 61d
My only mosquito problem is the noise they are making when they hit the electrical fly squatter.
I activate it when getting ready for bed, and when I turn off the lights, it only takes a few seconds before the fireworks starts. No hits so far this year.
cattywampas@lemmy.world · 21 pts · 61d
It's a midge, you can tell by the feathery antennae.
Jerb322@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 61d
Looks nothing like her./s
YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today · 4 pts · 61d
Dafuq was Bob slinging?
usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca · 9 pts · 61d
No, the feathery antennae is a way to tell males and females apart, not species. Male mosquitoes have feathery antennae, and so do males of many other fly and even other insect species.
Bebopalouie@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 61d
Here in Toronto area it is easy to tell the genders. Male mosquitoes are about 10 times the size of the females. Big honking things that look terrifying but do not harm. Are the squitos different gender sizes in different other areas?
usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 61d
So I'd consider myself a very amateur entomologist so am very open to being wrong here, but that's not a thing to my knowledge; if anything, the males tend to be smaller. You might be seeing two different species, or are misidentifying another insect for a male mosquito.
Bebopalouie@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 61d
I could be wrong. I have seen them for 60 yrs and anyone who sees them also calls them male mosquitoes. Now I am going to check it out and see. It’s summer now and there will be a few of them flying around that I can snap a pic of and see.
I searched and got this for male mosquito. This looks exactly like what I am talking about. They are way bigger and have no long proboscis for drinking.
usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 61d
That's a crane fly. They have lots of nicknames and folk identities so it's super common to call them something else. I've heard them called "mosquito hawks" (they don't hunt mosquitoes) but male mosquitoes is a new one to me. You could add it to the Wikipedia page lol
Bebopalouie@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 61d
All those years. I stand corrected. Love to learn new shtuff.
sem@piefed.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 61d
Can confirm this is a crane fly, aka Tipuloidea sp.
TheGreatJouneyIsA@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 61d
Thanks!
MuttMutt@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 61d
Looks like a crane fly to me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crane_fly
metallic_substance@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 61d
Crane flies don't have those feather like antennae. As another poster commented, this looks like a midge
usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 61d
Crane flies are significantly larger than mosquitoes and don't swarm. Swarms near a lake are very typical of midges who look superficially like mosquitoes.
Medic8eme@piefed.ca · -1 pts · 61d
Def a crane fly.
trxxruraxvr@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 61d
I'm not sure what it is exactly. It doesn't look like a mosquito. I'd suggest uploading it on inaturalist.org to get it identified.
outerspace@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 61d
Don't see that on the picture!
sem@piefed.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 61d
Good call! Maybe it's a midge
BreadOven@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 61d
Scale would be helpful, but likely not a mosquito. Unless you have some decent macro setting or lens for your camera.
YaDownWitCPP@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 61d
Google Lens says midge fly.
_deleted_@aussie.zone · -4 pts · 61d
Yes, it is.