CINCINNATI — The next time you see a bug that looks like a mosquito, it could be an insect called a crane fly.
Crane flies are giant mosquito look-alikes that don't bite people, but they are just large enough to be a pest.
"Crane flies fall into the category of kind of difficult to deal with," Joe Boggs, assistant professor at the Ohio State University extension's Department of Entymology, said. "We call them nuisance pests."
Beyond being big and annoying though, crane flies act in a similar way to earthworms. According to Boggs, the flies take large pieces of organic matter and break them up into smaller pieces to help enrich soil.
The flies can usually be found near older lawns, damp grass patches or in parks. The weather also plays a big role in their life, too, as their eggs need a lot of moisture before they hatch. And this past spring was exceptionally wet, which is why we are seeing a lot of these flies today.
"When fall approached, the crane flies reawakened," Boggs said. "They completed their development and that’s why we have so many.”
