European Crane Fly Larvae 17 May 2007. http://cranflyl.notlong.com/ 17 May 2007. European Crane Fly Larvae. About 25 leatherjackets were picked from around this small plant within about 10 cm. of the stalk, many were clinging to the roots and probably sucking the juices. The plant was dying by degrees. Damage is both to the leaves, when the leatherjacket comes out at night, and to the roots. The birds do a good job in controlling. Sometimes when the larvae are in quantity the yard will be full of birds. I observed one blackbird eating 15 in less than a minute digging from the grass. The damage these letherjacks, when they are in large numbers, inflict is colossal, . They thrive in a very wet time of the year, usually early spring. They devastate morning glory seedlings amongst many other plants and grass. The adult is a large mosquito type insect sometimes called a Texas Critter and Mosquito Hawk. Unfortunatley, they do not eat mosquitoes, so they is nothing beneficial to man about this insect. Some detailed information about this pest. http://www.humeseeds.com/cranefly.htm http://whatcom.wsu.edu/cranefly/articles/Collman-CFintro.htm http://www.durgan.org/Blog/Durgan.html
Years ago when I was a preteen there were thousands of the adult crane flies here in Vancouver. Thankfully another European import had been introduced in earlier years - the European Starling. Now many decades later we still have the leather jackets and their adult crane flies (sometime called flying Daddy Long Legs out this way) but the numbers are WAY down and we only see maybe a dozen or so all season long. Anne
Anne58. I first encountered them in 2004 and they caused much damage. Since then they have been manageable, but they are still a misery, particularly amongst newly planted greenhouse plants. I usually dig around the plant and hand remove them. The starlings love them, and I now enjoy the starling flock visits. The leatherjackets are not present in the vegetable garden, probably due to cultivation. http://www.durgan.org/Blog/Durgan.html
