Giant Crane Fly

Holorusia hespera

Although this resembles a giant mosquito, it does not bite.If you can enlarge this, I recommend it, the better to see all the fascinating detail. In reality it measures about an inch and a half from snout to tail.

I was quite excited for awhile, thinking I had found the world's only four-legged insect, until I read that the Giant Crane Fly sheds its legs as a defensive mechanism and cannot, alas, regenerate. Its remaining legs are fragile and knobby kneed, and very very long. Now look carefully just below the wings and you will find a pair of thin lines with tiny knobs on top; these are halteres, or a second pair of hind wings, something I would never have guessed. They look more like misplaced antennae.

Once this creature settled on the rosemary bush, it appeared that it was there for the night. I went back three times and it hadn't moved, except to fold its wings back and assume more of a stick-like shape. I read that the adults do not eat, a sad state of affairs if you ask me.