Sam – Bugs n Ducks

My entomological world was turned upside down last weekend and I have to share.

Being from New Orleans we have words and phrases for many things that are different from the rest of the world.  We have brake tags, the world has motor vehicle inspection stickers.  We have neutral grounds, the world has medians.  We have street cars, the world has trolleys.

I grew up with a bug that all yats know as the mosquito hawk.  The rest of the world knows it as the dragonfly.  Since I currently don’t live in New Orleans my kids know these bugs as dragonflies.  When I say something about a mosquito hawk the kids look at me and ask what I’m talking about and I have to explain that when daddy was a boy he called them something different.  Then that of course leads to a bunch of “why is it a hawk”, “how come it doesn’t look like a dragon” questions.  Yadda yadda yadda…you know the drill.

Now to bring up the second bug in this story.  In most of the world it’s know as a crane fly.  Right now they are all over my patio and stuck to my back door.  When the door opens a dozen or so float in on the breeze.  These are those giant looking mosquito like things that have the legs that easily break off.  They just bounce around the walls in the house until they die or the kids see them and freak out because they are huge. (explaining that these bugs don’t bite means nothing because the size of the bug is enough to make the kids lose all sense of reasoning)

Anyway, I’ve always known these crane flies as “mosquito eaters” because they feast on mosquitos.  They don’t bite people, they just annoy people…they bite mosquitos.

The shakeup in my bug world came when a friend saw the crane flies and called them mosquito hawks.  I corrected her and told her that was not a mosquito hawk…a mosquito hawk is a dragonfly…these bugs are called mosquito eaters.  So we went round and round a bit like Abbott and Costello until we were able to figure out that what she and her “people” called mosquito hawks is not what my “people” and I call mosquito hawks.

The next step of course was whipping out the Google and settling this score.  Thanks to Google I figured out that the real name of the annoying bug is the Crane Fly and that the first nickname listed was the Mosquito Hawk.  Waaaaaay down the list after Montana Fly, Daddy Long Legs, Leather Jackets, Tipula simplex, Chickenflies and such was the Mosquito Eater. 

I did some more Googling and checking and these nasty pests are in fact mainly known as mosquito hawks, but the dragonfly is also known as the mosquito hawk.  So, I guess we were both right, but the fact that something else is more commonly know as a mosquito hawk is just a total shock. 

I also discovered that the crane fly’s #1 nemesis are birds…so finally these stupid ducks in my backyard can start earning their keep.