crane fly! ornata? based on the natty yellow stripes and fancy antennae, and iirc you’re in europe? so yeah probably cteno-whatsit ornata. super harmless, dumb as paint, and delicious to spiders and bats. they may appear to come at you but it’s not attacking they’re just bad at everything.
that looks like some of the older electric oil warmers ive seen. the whole open-dish setup is from the last decade or two, and the face steamers ive seen all have something to keep the steam from blowing away.
Thanks! It wasn´t bothering me, but the kitties were very interested and I was a bit worried they might get stung if it was a stingy bug. It eventually found the window. (Also yes, am German)
Yeah, we get crane flies around here (I thought that might’ve been was what it was but I didn’t know if they were found in Europe, so I wasn’t sure enough to say anything with any sort of certainty), and they’re completely harmless. Your kitties will be just fine if they encounter another! <3
and it’s fine if they eat it. non poisonous as well as non venomous. the yellow stripes are fancy for impressing mates, not a warning.
Around here you see live crane flies rolling down the sidewalk like tumbleweeds when it's windy. I don't know how they're alive.
Crane fly: * flies inside, proceeds to bumble around the ceiling for 4 hours despite being shooed towards an open door several times *
you can catch them in your bare hand, just make a loose finger cage, they won’t sort their legs out enough to go between your fingers in time to keep from being carried outside. don’t catch them by a leg though, those pop right off like a lizards tail.
I've definitely managed to get them out before, it's just I'm too short to reach our ceilings and also clumsy enough to possibly hurt myself standing on a stepstool to try to grab one
my family calls those guys mosquito hawks! I'm not sure if that's a Maine thing, or a thing from somewhere else that we picked up and brought to Maine.
that’s what we call them in mn too. a lot of folks think they prey on mosquitoes but alas, they do not. nor do bats or spiders eat as many skeeters as previously thought. we really need to engineer a small skywhale that drifts around wetlands filter feeding on skeeters, gnats, and flies.
Yeah, mosquito hawks or 'squeeter eaters is what we call them. PS I unironically love how this thread has devolved into the thread for lovingly dragging crane flies.
They're one of those insects where the larval form ("leatherjackets") are the majority of the lifespan. Major plant pest, attacks the roots. My dad's a professional horticulturalist so I learned about all this stuff growing up. He retired a few years ago from being head of the horticulture and landscaping department at a pretty big ag college.
