DADDY-LONG-LEGS

 Two creatures are typically called daddy longlegs.  One is a spider and the other is this Cranefly, Tipula oleracea.

I found this one on the kitchen floor where it obligingly sat still, but on the previous day when I was blackberrying they were flying out of the grass in their hundreds.   This is the time of year when they emerge for a brief adult life after chomping away on plant roots all summer as grubs called leather jackets.

This one still has all six legs but they do lose them quite easily if you try to catch one.

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Two things to point out:

1. It is a true fly, a member of the Diptera order.  Diptera means two-winged and as you can see it has only two wings instead of the four that most insects have.  The second pair of wings in all flies have developed into two drumstick-shaped organs called halteres or balancers.  These act like gyroscopes to help stabilise the insect in flight.  On Crane flies they show up really well and you can see one of them  just behind the left wing in my photo.

2. The other thing is that the female has a pointed tip to her abdomen so that she can lay her eggs in the soil.  Mummy longlegs, I suppose.  The male has a square end to his body as you can see in the individual above.

Every September people shriek and cower from these daddy long legses but they are totally harmless. As they fly around you in the fields be glad that at least some insects are still abundant.