| Tipula vernalis (Meigen, 1804) |
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Scientific name: Tipula vernalis (Meigen, 1804) Common name: French name: Tipule printanière Order: Diptera Family: Tipulidae Wingspan : Body size: 13 to 15 mm; Wing length: 12 to 18 mm. Biotope: Damp woodlands, marshes. Geographic area: Western Palaearctic region. Observation period : April to June. |
Tipulidae, also called Crane Flies, are remarkable by their very long and fragile legs which can easily detach from the body. You can recognize the members of the Tipulidae family by the V-shape suture of the mesonotum, on the upper side of the thorax between the base of the wings, by their long snout and by they wing veins with two anal veins reaching the edge of the wing. The Crane flies of the Tipula genus are characterized by the sub-costal vein joining the radial vein (Tipulinae family), by the presence of a discal cell, by long legs and by thread-like antennae with 13 articles. Tipula vernalis has uniformly coloured antennae with only the first articles being paler. The first article is greyish, the second one is yellowish. The wings are a milky colour without very well marked white patch. The veins are bordered by some greyish colour. The abdomen is ochre-coloured at the front and more brown at the rear. It shows dark dorsal and lateral stripes. The thorax shows three dark brown longitudinal stripes. The central stripe is well marked and triangle-shaped. The other stripes, on each side, are sometimes hardly visible. The eyes are green or sometimes brown. |
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The milky coloured wings, the veins bordered by grey and the stripes on the thorax are the keys to identify the Tipula vernalis species. The yellowish second article of the antennae is clearly visible on the non-reduced picture. |
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Everything was in place to shoot a beautiful picture with this crane fly covered with morning dew drops. Everything, except that I had no tripod and all hand-held pictures were showing moving blur because of a too long exposure time. Then I have used the flash but I am not yet very skilled with this technique and the result is not that good. |
André Bon September 2012