Phantom crane fly
The phantom crane fly is a thin black fly with very long legs that have white bands near the tips. It drifts slowly through the plants, carried by the wind, with its legs spread out wide. When it floats past, the black parts seem to vanish and only the white spots flicker, like a little ghost.
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Fun facts
It hardly uses its wings. It lets the wind carry it, holding out its light, puffy legs like a sail.
Its leg feet are puffed up but hollow and very light, so they catch the air.
A mother dips her tail into the water and lays up to 300 eggs, which hatch after about a week.
Its larva lives in the mud and breathes through a long tube it pokes up to the water surface, like a snorkel.
Couples fly around together, joined up in pairs.
Most asked questions about Phantom crane fly
?Why is it called a phantom crane fly?
Because its black legs seem to disappear as it flies, leaving only the white spots floating like a ghost.
?Is the phantom crane fly dangerous?
No. It does not bite or sting. It hardly even eats.
?Where can you see a phantom crane fly?
In shady, wet places at the edges of swamps and ponds in eastern North America, from late spring to autumn.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Bittacomorpha clavipes
- Named by
- Fabricius, 1781
- Group
- Flies and mosquitoes
- Family
- Ptychopteridae
- Classification
- Insecta > Diptera > Ptychopteridae
- Lives on
- North America
- Also known as
- Eastern phantom crane fly
Where the facts come from
- Bittacomorpha clavipes (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Christina Butler from Georgia, United States. CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.
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