Jumbo Flies

Compared to a tiny tiny fruitfly
That we barely see,
A bluebottle blowfly is a shiny guy,
At half-a-bee.
He must be big, because
He is born to make a buzz –
To-and-fro, darting, wheeling,
Watch him go.
Small enough to hang-out on the ceiling,
Yet large enough to bounce against the window.
My my,
What a fly !
What a glow !

Compared to a tiny wee mosquito
That we only hear,
A cranefly is as silent as it’s slow,
And nowt to fear !
Their leatherjackets may
Be skeeter-eaters in their day,
But there’s no meat on the menu
Once they grow.
And how they grow !, these slender-friends,
These stilted-striders, palm-wide gliders,
Gone in just a mo.
My my,
What a fly !
Magico !

Compared to a tiny tiny dancing gnat
Within a cloud,
A robberfly is big and fat,
And ludicrously loud !
Aerial assaulters,
Whose cheerleader-halters –
Beat like a motorbike
Or dynamo.
With mouth-pike and bug-eye –
Each giant part in all its art is big enough to spy –
And what a show !
My my,
What a fly !
Now you know.

There are plenty of people that will tell you that crane flies are not mosquitos and they do not eat mosquitos. They are wrong on both counts (for a given value of mosquito – they are certainly more closely related to each other than either is to a housefly, but they still went their separate ways way back in the Jurassic.)

Most adult crane flies have no mouthparts at all, and their larvas are mostly vegetarian. However, with over 15 thousand species, there are always a few edge cases where the leatherjackets do sometimes eat those fidgety question marks that are mosquitettes.