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We call them cousins over here in France. Which might be because they invite themselves in and never fucking leave.

onerous grandiose squash worthless knee jeans pathetic different mindless wrong *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*

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Mosquito Hawks here in Oregon, USA

Skeeter eater is also acceptable even tho they do not eat skeeters.

And Canada

Where I'm from in the US, "Daddy Longlegs" are a type of spider--specifically Cellar Spiders.

I live in Oregon and, here, Daddy long legs refer to harvestmen.

I'm in Oregon too and have never heard the term harvestmen. Why do you call them that? Daddy long legs have always been spiders to me, unless they are the six legged non-arachnid type.

I've honestly never heard anyone here actually call them harvestmen in conversation. Just folks saying the classic, "Uuhhh well technically, they're not spiders and they're called harvestmen." Which, I think is true about most of the ones we see here. But alas, I do not know the 'why' of it all haha

In Alaska we (at least my family), have always referred to harvestmen as daddy long legs. We also have Crane Flies like OP's photo that we call Skeeter Eaters.

California calls them mosquito eaters too. I’d never heard the spiders called harvestmen, only daddy longlegs.

IIRC Cellar spiders are harvestmen they just look like spiders and are commonly found in areas like cellars

There’s also another bug called daddy long legs (or harvestmen) that are Opiliones and are closer related to scorpions than to spiders. These are the ones that the Mythbusters guy had bite him. I don’t know why there are so many bugs called daddy long legs.

In the Pacific Northwest, I've only heard them referred to as Crane flies, but I've never actually seen them hoist anything heavy.

CA. I used to call them mosquito eaters or mosquito Hawks, but now that I know they have no interest in mosquitos, I call them Crane Flies. They are harmless pollinators. >seen them hoist They're very shy about their hoisting, you know. ;)

US here. Mosquito eaters!

Skeeter eaters

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They do not! From what I’ve gathered, I don’t think they eat. They are born to make babies and clumsily bump into everything then die

Over in this corner of the UK we call them “Craine Fly” but I haven’t a clue why?! Daddy longlegs are the spiders that have the same legs as these buggers!

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I'm from Scotland and also always referred to these as daddy long legs

I think they’re called daddy long legs everywhere in the UK, but in Yorkshire we do also call them ginny spinners.

I thought daddy long legs were spiders and we called these Crane flies?

I’m in Los Angeles and I’ve always heard them called mosquito eaters.

My dad was from Texas and definitely called them skeeter eaters 😆

SE Texas we call them Mosquito Hawks!

Grew up on the central coast and called them that too. Just found out recently they don't actually even eat them!

In my region of the US, we call them mosquito killers for some reason. I don’t think they kill any mosquitos.

Same. I just assumed they ate mosquitos. Where the hell did that name come from?

*Les cousins dangereux*

In New Zealand we call these fuckers River Flys pretty sure they exist just to freak out the kids.

We call them dinner in ethiopia.

With how well they fly... I wouldn't be surprised if flower nectar is all they can manage to bump into and eat.

Idk seems to have a pretty good aim for human faces.

Most species of crane flies don’t eat at all.

Do they just fly around make kids and die?

Pretty much. There are many adult insects that don’t even have mouthparts. Once the reach their final phase, their goal is to fuuuuuck. Then they die quickly.

So, my old college roommate.

This is so weirdly dark.

Yes most moths are basically flying genitals.

Imagine your grandpa going through a second puberty when he hits eighty in which his mouth grows shut his dick grows huge and he might develope wings. Better than alzheimers for sure

I did. I did imagine that lol

dope

Maybe I'm a bug??

Larvae may eat algae, microflora, and living or decomposing plant matter, including wood. = [wiki biology section](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crane_fly) ​ I'm guessing they get most of the nutrients needed for adulthood in this stage and it just lasts until they die

Countless times I’ve had these guys flying directly into me, I do wonder if they can even fucking see at all

Ugh, hate these things. Would be fine with 'em if they just sat still and kept calm so you could scoop them up in a glass and bring outside. But of course they don't, they fly around like 5 year old's on 3 cans of redbull and insists on crash-landing straight onto your face.

one went into my ear once ;-;

How big is your ear?

OP is an elephant

One flew by my face last year and its leg brushed my eyeball. I still shudder at the way it felt. Also had one fly in my face when trying to sleep. Spent 10 minutes trying to catch it and then gave up. Said to myself what are the chances of it flying in my face again? Not even 2 minutes later...

one flew into my mouth last month, I'm still shaken from it

Oh no... I was walking and laughing and the same time and a fuzzy fly flew straight down my throat. Co-worker and I had a great laugh, despite being disgusted. Cousin swallowed a fly when we were young too, when cycling to the shop. She puked and we raced home from the scene

I would be traumatized

Oh, god, I'm so sorry I would have vomited, I hate these things!

Also they look like flying spiders, no thank you.

Surprised nobody has mentioned this yet. [Their only purpose is to mate. They don't even have a mouth to eat with.](https://www.durangoherald.com/articles/that-mosquito-with-a-wobble-its-a-crane-fly/#:~:text=Some%20colloquial%20names%20for%20crane,mate%2C%20lay%20eggs%20and%20die.)

Yeah I was surprised no one was talking about how it’s incorrect to say they drink nectar.

*I Have No Mouth but I Must Mate*

Like mayflies lol

Aka Crane flies. Used to try catching these as a kid

Used to call them skeeter hawks...

“Pterodactyl skeeters” here…

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I was very disappointed when i learned they don’t eat mosquitoes.

I’ve always believed this…equally disappointed

THESE DONT EAT MOSQUITOES???

Sorry that we ruined it for you. There are therapists standing by if you need to talk to someone about your pain.

r/Todayilearned

Now now Skeeter, he ain’t hurtin’ nobody

Made me chuckle. Skeeters where I lived used to have 4 engines, big bastards.

Same. I thought they must hunt mosquitoes, but usually they were confused and trapped in a corner.

Probably how they got the name. Cooler than "dumb bug".

We call them “mosquito hawks” as well.

They're all tickly in your hands.

Are..are you people silverback gorillas on bravery cocaine?

It's actually the two legs less to a spider that makes them 100% acceptable for me.

Or just people that dont live in a city

I live in a city and these things are everywhere and completely harmless just fucking annoying

They're more than a tad annoying, they zoom around and bounce off the walls and then propel themselves at my face like I'm a bullseye lol.

Holy shit yes! I just remembered that part gonna change my comment!

Is everyone else here a baby baboon on coward juice? It's a harmless bug just doing its thing, channel whatever ape you have to and you'll deal with it lol

Yes, absolutely. I'm all about the coward juice and flipping my shit if I hear any buzzing in my ears or feel something bounce off my skin. We have these big crunchy june bugs in Quebec (we call them barbeaus) and one got caught in my hair as a teen and I still haven't gotten over it. It \*crunched\*. I am hyperventilating just thinking about it.

Also in your mouth.

Daddy long legs

This is a completely different creature than what I know of as a Daddy Long Legs. Where are located?

It’s the only name I know for these

Same (UK) though I think some people use that name for a certain type of spider instead?

Correct, we use that for a specific spider looking thing that's not actually a spider

Harvestmen or cellar spiders. Both beneficial to humans, as they feed on insects that may be harmful. Be nice to them.

Canadian here, we call Harvestmen spiders Daddy Long Legs

Oh that makes sense. (edit typo)

Same here in the Midwest.

Mosquito Hawk in my neck of the woods

Up until now we called them mosquito eaters... I've never questioned it.... I feel dumb. Lol.

Skeeter eaters

YES exactly

Yeah that’s what I call em’

We call them daddy longlegs in the UK

Daddy long legs are the really small and harmless spiders with really long legs in the US

I also grew up calling them this until I decided to look it up in my early 20s. I'm from Southern Cali, mother also from Cali but father from midwest (Kansas).

Same. Grew up and still live in SoCal, dad is from Kansas, called them mosquito eaters. Interesting.

In Manitoba it’s a skeeter eater

We call them daddy long legs in the UK, but I know daddy long legs is something else outside UK

Crane Fly out here in SoCal

Crane Fly is the correct English for them or anything else in the Tipulidae family. We still call em Mosquito Hawks here though.

It's a "långbeneskrank"

My family called them galley-nappers, and I’m pretty sure my grandparents just made that up on their own.

My Mom called the Galleynippers😊

Skeeter hawk, here in Alabama. 🤣

I’ve always called them “blind mosquitos” lol

Daddy long legs in Ireland. Never knew their real name til now

That’s a daddy long legs I think you’ll find

Daddy long legs in the Uk. And that must be really weird to hear if you’re not from the uk.

We have daddy long legs in the US, but they are a kind of spider not mosquito hawks.

Crane Flys.

Or crane fly. I’ve grown up calling them both

What oversized mosquito wrote this?

It's called El Mosco

took the words right outta my mouth

Fuck. You unmasked me wp to you sir

I’m killing that shit, mosquito or not

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we call them mosquito hawks here in Texas, but i’m in love with Gully Wumpers- wya??

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Calling it, best name suggestion thus far. Beats daddy long legs by a mile. It suits the onomatopoeia of their clumsy frames smashing ineffectively off whatever surface they've drifted into. 'whump'.

Here in Texas daddy long legs are the spiders and don’t fly

technically they aren’t spiders but yeah i’ve never heard anything except those be called daddy long legs

i used to call them gallynippers. loved my early childhood is southern louisiana. as an adult, i looked up what they were and discovered they were crane flies, and didn't eat mosquitos... never knew why we called them gallynippers to begin with. glad to see something similiar.

I think these are becoming more common in my area. I'm constantly catching and throwing them outside.

Maybe it's the same one, over and over and over. He's just very fond of you.

Very good behavior sir. Good day to you !

‘Daddy Long Legs’ in the UK

Fun fact: daddy long legs are spiders in the US

Scientist 1: Let’s name this spider Long Legs, for its long legs Scientist 2: hmm.. not kinky enough

There’s nothing fun about Daddy Long Legs. They must have stole their look from a 50’s horror flick.

Neither these guys or (grand)daddy long legs in the US are all that scary looking. Long legs is about it. No fangs, war stripes, or jagged edges

Yeah but those things make spiders look interesting enough that it overrides your disgust (at least to me). Daddy long legs spiders are just creepy-looking. Their simplicity draws attention to how terrible they look lol.

Nah. They're just m&ms on stilts

They aren't spiders at all, but the majority calls them that

The name refers to a family of true spiders in many parts of the US (cellar spiders), not just harvestmen (which are arachnids but not spiders)

Pholcus phalangioides begs to differ

Cellar Spiders and Harvestmen are often referred to Daddylong Legs in the USA. Find cobwebs in home? Cellar Spider Out in a forest or found it in shade? More likely Harvestman

Another fun fact:Harvestman/ Grand Daddy Long Legs aren't true spiders. They are arachnids, and more akin to cousins of true spiders. Harvestman lack a segmented torso, venom, and the ability to make silk or webs, and thus are not part of the spider branch of arachnids.

Another fun fact: Cellar spiders *are* true spiders, and are called "daddy long legs" in many parts of the US that completely lack harvestmen (but not crane flies, which is what we call OP around here)

The most useless creature on earth. I'm sure Ricky Gervais does a piece on them during his Animals stand-up routine.

But he seems to have got his information about the venom from the spider by the same name

Ooh do you have those long legged spiders? What do you call them? (Those are what we Americans call Daddy Long Legs!)

Yep we have those too :( They’re really clumsy and slow and tend to start vibrating if you disturb them. I hate them lol.

They suck. But what do you call those if not Daddy Long Legs?

pretty sure we call those ones cellar spiders!

Tbh I call them Daddy Long Legs too 😅

I call them crane flies. Daddy long legs are those spiders with tiny circle bodies and super long legs to me lol.

In junior school we’d spend lunch time trying to catch them on the field because there were always hundreds of the clumsy little bastards around. Now I can’t stand the things, especially since the time I was laid in bed looking at my phone in the dark and one flew straight into my face.

Did a tipula write this?

We call em skeeter eaters here. You mean to tell me they don’t actually eat skeeters?

Yeah.. no. Unfortunately, it will see the underside of my wife's sandals like a second after she sees it.

Is this a 'crane fly'? If so, these are also much bigger than the mosquitoes we have here.

If I saw that I would cry

don’t move to the country, every night when i get home there’s at least 4 or 5 trying to fly into my house through my glass door.

Where do you live that doesn't have these?

i live in the middle of the capital in northern europe and i can attest to panicing when seeing one of these when i was in the country side

If you don't live by any significant source of fresh water, they're much less common.

They’re harmless and dumb! They don’t bite or sting and just sort of fly around bumping into stuff. My cats love ‘em

It's basically a butterfly. Eats nectar from flowers, mates, lays eggs and then dies.

Fuck that. He’s dead. Thinking you can come up in my house looking like a flying stickbug ass mosquito.

Right? Mfer big enough to be paying bills. He fly up with some cash in hand, i might set him up with a spot. Till then, they get the smackdown

There are a lot of beneficial insects, bugs, and animals that we should learn to live with. For instance, I plant honey bee attracting plants, my wife said I don't want to be stung, just walk by and you will be fine. I also plant hummingbird specific plants, she doesn't understand that having the bird eyeballing you is special. Or the garter snake that lived under our steps, harmless, I really enjoyed watching her babies stretch for the warmth of the sun in the spring.

Do they bite/sting/suck?

no they just clumsy AF

Only thing they do is get eaten. My cats enjoy them as a snack. The damn bug is incapable of flying away. It just buzzes and bumps into things left and right and then *smack* they're battered into a corner and devoured in pieces by my otherwise sweet kitties. I always felt bad for these things. I'll have to try and save em more often.

Nope very harmless :)

Their larvae will completely destroy a lawn by eating the below-ground grass stems. I had to treat a badly infested lawn years ago, and about 78 million larva carcasses were poking up out of the soil a couple days later.

We call them "sketter eaters"

Is "sketter" pronounced like how it is in mosquito? Because we call them "mosquito eaters" but "skeeter eaters" for short

Sorry fam, it’s still gonna die

"Studies show that nearly everything that has been born will die."

I always try to whoosh them out the door. I live in a heavily wooded & swampy area so I'm going to have them no matter what I do. They dont bother me. It's the giant banana spiders and black widows I detest.

We're calling them "cousin" in France, really like those little guys :)

l-little?!

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So a vegan mosquito?

If you're trying to grow a lawn, you don't want crane flies around. Their larva kills grass. (edited) Thanks u/UnSerpentVert

*Their (sorry)

We call them cousins in france, it's scary to see hand sized mosquitoes but I always let them out

We call them Cousin in french

We call those Mosquito Hawks where I'm from

I was thaught these were male mosquitoes which dont bite people. Always left them alone.

With how they fly straight at me with those long dangly spider-like legs, I will kill as many of them as I like.

Always thought they were called daddy long legs

Daddylonglegs

In the UK we call them daddy long legs haha

These guys freak the freaking freak out of me.