Crane flies look like giant mosquitoes. They’re present all over the United States, including the Duxbury region. With Zika and other insect borne diseases capturing headlines, we’ve had a few questions about crane flies and their impact on local lawns.
It’s important to understand that while crane flies look like giant mosquitoes, they’re actually not mosquitoes at all. They’re a completely different species of insect, Tipulinae. They don’t bite people and they’re not implicated in the spread of Zika, West Nile Disease or other scary diseases.
People will tell you that crane flies eat mosquitoes, but that’s not true. Dragonflies eat mosquitoes, and so do birds and bats, but adult crane flies don’t eat anything at all during their short 10-15 life span. What crane flies do instead is mate and lay eggs, and that can be rough on your Duxbury lawn.
Crane flies, like mosquitoes, prefer wet, marshy areas to lay their eggs. This is where the larva form and develop into adults. Crane fly larva eat a lot, and the impact on your lawn can be tremendous. Over in England, where cricket is more popular than baseball is here, people were forced to hand-pick crane fly larva from the cricket grounds to keep the carefully manicured greens from being wrecked. Luckily, here in Duxbury, we have additional pest control options available.
The proven mosquito control techniques we use to keep Duxbury families safe and comfortable address many of the issues that encourage crane fly populations. Removing standing water and treating breeding areas have been shown to reduce the number of all types of insects in a given zone, not just mosquitoes. Crane flies will seek more amenable settings to lay their eggs, leaving your yard lush and green. Have questions about crane flies? Give us a call. We’d be glad to help.
