The BIGGEST Mosquito in the world?

Have you seen this “huge mosquito”? I always find it in bathroom so I guess it likes to peek people taking shower. What is worse than a horny and oversized mosquito? So I had a very bad impression about it.

I had seen some females ran away from the bathroom and complained, “that’s a big mosquito inside!!!” as if they saw a mutant mosquito that would suck their blood dry.

One day I saw this evil bug again so I caught it (with some effort). Its body length is nearly 2 inches if its long legs are counted in measurement.

When I was about to squash this “mosquito” in my palm, I noticed it didn’t really look like a mosquito.

So I took a closer look of it..

This insect doesn’t own a needle-like stinger like blood-sucking mosquito.

Second difference is the tiny knobby things between its wings. It is called halteres, which act like gyroscope to tell its orientation in the air.

That puzzled me so I googled this insect on the Internet with keywords “insect that looks like big mosquito“. Immediately thousands of search results show up and all leads me to one answer: this insect is a Crane Fly (Order: Diptera, Family: Tipulidae). It is not even closely related to mosquito. And no, it doesn’t bite. It feeds on nectar.

Crane Fly has other interesting names such as mosquito hawks, mosquito eaters, skeeter eater, jimmy spinner and gallinipper. The adult doesn’t prey on mosquito but its aquatic larva may eat mosquito larvae occasionally.

Now you know that it’s NOT a mosquito, so please don’t kill it if you see it next time. Thousands of crane flies might have been killed b’coz everyone thinks it is a mosquito.

Photos taken in Sabah, Malaysia Borneo