A Giant 'Skeeter?'

A few days ago I was working on one of the restrooms at the road wayside near Westboro, Wisconsin. Here in Wisconsin we have our share of Mosquitoes and granted, when they bite us, they sure feel a whole heap bigger than they look.

This particular day as I was cleaning the walls I saw what had to be the Mother of All Skeeters. Right there smack dab on the middle of the wall was just about the biggest skeeter I ever laid eyes on. That kritter looked like one bad dude a skeeter on steroids, I thought to myself. I got a bit closer to have a better look, but I couldnt really figger out what it actually was. When I touched it, it flew over to another wall and rested once again. I went out to our supply truck and found an empty plastic pop bottle and improvised a bug carrier of sorts and went back to the restroom and captured this interesting kritter. When I got home from work that evening I put the bottle with my giant skeeter on my desk and went to work on the internet to see if I could figger out just what this kritter really was.

It turns out that it was a Crane Fly -- they really do look like giant mosquitoes, but they aint skeeters at all. They only look like skeeters; theys a might differnt from skeeters. In reality, theyre a type of fly. Crane Flies are up to 2 1/2 inches longwith a wingspan of three inches, so theyre pretty intimidating in appearance. Theyre grayish-brown in color and kind-a fragile-lookin like skeeters.

Crane Flies mate o ...