What a beautiful bug. Crane fly identification came without hesitation, but desire lingered for a more accurate name. There were so many, Google “crane fly” and see.
Dead winter served as a time to attempt a more accurate identification. Crane flies have appeared as a topic in prior Angelkeep Journals’ postings, but this creature deserved to be highlighted.
Oh how Angelkeep often previously wished, and once again desired, to step back in Bluffton time about a century to draw on the expertise of local banker E. Bruce Williamson. Not for financial leadership, though he was a worthy counselor for such, but due to his hobby of entomology. Bruce had his own “Bug Room,” capitalized because it had been duplicated in no other location worldwide. Bruce specialized as one, if not the, world leader in odonata (dragonflies and damselflies.) Bruce would have known about this crane fly so spectacular in color and size.
Bluffton’s next generation’s bug man, Dick Wilkey, would be another, and this writer did have occasion years ago to foster a relationship with Wilkey. He grew bugs, then mounted them on microscope slides for use in American colleges. He also had one of the largest McDonald toy artifact collections ever assembled, some prototype items coveted by McDonald’s own museum. Wilkey served Wells County 4-H as bug collection judge for years. What a nice guy.
Angelkeep needed a Bruce or Dick to identify its friendly bright red-orange Tipulidae Tipula. A day or two after being photographed at the first encounter, it reappeared for hours clinging to the patio screen door begging for companionship.
Angelkeep could almost hear a Williamson angel robustly laughing and then calling the insect a leatherjacket. Of course his jollity preceded about two hours of dialogue relating not only to common names and characteristics, but references to Latin names and words enough to boggle the mind of the listener. Today’s scientific species names often receive (parenthesis,) a notation of the science community disputing classifications.
North America had over 1,500 different crane flies and subspecies. Bruce would have been amazed at the photo secured. He resorted to pencil drawing to get good identifying pictures of his dragonflies.
“It’s a female,” Bruce would have said. “Know how to tell?”
Bruce was a world expert, but always the teacher. When Bluffton pharmacist Charles C. Deam asked his younger “buddy” Bruce about a plant he failed to identify, Bruce refused to tell him. Though he knew, instead he taught Deam classification techniques to identify plants. Deam admitted Bruce as being responsible for starting his career as Indiana’s first State Forester.
One thing Angelkeep learned for sure: By seeing the pointy abdomen tip, called ovipositor, it was a female. Sunshine really made the orange vibrant, with a couple stripes of charcoal. Markings were so individualized and perfect in photos, the returnee could be identified as the exact crane fly encountered previously. No internet photos equaled the color or pattern of this bug girl. She was pushing 1.5” from rested wing tip to head antenna, and about four inches in leg span. Her amber and charcoal translucent wings looked like isinglass in front of a stove’s coal fire.
Bruce knew about stoves with isinglass, perhaps one heating the Bug Room. There he did winter research on insects while wishing for springtime to hike and collect in the local dragonfly-rich swamps.
Leatherjackets were helpful, much desired insects, worth more than just a pretty face. The lady in orange certainly had been Angelkeep finest crane fly, by size, color, and friendliness. She whispered sweetness through the screen door for hours, with adoration reciprocated. After all, crane flies’ adult stage purpose was reproduction, not eating. Hopefully Miss Amber met her Mr. and deposited ample orange leatherjacket eggs at Angelkeep to assure a robust 2023 summer of the next generation.
Dick Wilkey would have made sure of that. Williamson likely would have said, “Look, you have Angelpond full of dragonflies. Forget the leathernecks and love the dragonflies.”
Mr. Daugherty is a Wells County resident who, along with his wife Gwen, enjoy their backyard and have named it “Angelkeep.”
