Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Invasion of the Gollywhoppers

This time of year creates an interesting adventure for our cats. It's crane fly season. Crane flies are those insects that look like giant mosquitos hanging around doorways, sneaking in when you come or go. They don't bite, but are so large as to be just creepy. When they get in, they slowly bounce around the ceiling, occasionally dropping down low enough to be snatched out of the air and eaten by Mrs. Jones or Grisabella.

This picture is smaller than the actual size of the 50 to 100 on my front porch right now. They are just hanging around on the window screens and walls, waiting for Mr. or Mrs. Perfect Crane Fly to come along.

I've heard them called Skeeter Hawks most of my life. Daddy Longlegs is another name I've heard. But Gollywhopper and Gallinipper are new ones to me.

7 comments:

  1. Never heard them called Gollywhoppers (that makes me think of Willy Wonka...or was that gobstoppers or something). They are Skeeter Hawks to us. My husband actually BROKE his foot killing one. He jumped up to kill it and when he came down he landed awkwardly breaking the foot. He really doesn't like for me to tell that.

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  2. I have never heard them called anything but skeeter hawks, and that's always kind of confused me because I never call mosquitoes skeeters, and I never call skeeter hawks mosquito hawks. Why is this?

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  3. Gollywhopper?? LOL! Never heard that.

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  4. lol ive always heard them call gollywhopers but of course we live in the DEEP south

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  5. I've always heard gallinippers.

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  6. Last night, my hubby and I were sitting in the living room and I spied one of these creatures and said, "oh look, a gallinipper just came in", he looked at me like I was mental! I looked it up on Wikipedia and sure enough, others call them gallinippers too!

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