Daddy Long Legs!!!!!

[Butterfly]

:oI hate them, and they are back with avengence! They are the only bug i just simply can not stand (and spider mites,as am elergic!).You have never seen me launch out of my beanbag so quickly as when one of those is launching its long legs at my face!! And although it stops me being lazy all evening, it happend 4 times last night, then ofcourse i closed the window, despite the heat!... I think i will invest in some bug nets for this particular bug!x

[merrybel]

Oh, Fliss!!! I am absolutely phobic about daddy-long-legs. I completely sympathise. I can't be in the same room as one. They hate me. Poor Barry had to get rid of two in the bathroom at eleven o'clock at night coz I had left the window open and we have to have the light on in there for the boys. I like every other type of bug - earwigs, spiders, woodlice..... but craneflies?? Nope. I think the gods were a trifle tipsy when they invented them. It's not as if they are useful and they can't possibly be edible. Does someone know any different? I know cats like them, but are they a staple diet for anything?
Don't bother with bug nets - try a rolled up radio times and a sympathetic man.

[celticwolf]

Luckily Daddy Long Legs i am fine with, my partner Nick n the other hand, she will not go into a room if there is one in there so i have to dispose of them.

I am then stuck with 2 options. Boil on a hot night so that the windows can stay shut or listen to Nick screaming and i get no rest.....Mmmmmmm what option do i take?

Celticwolf

[sleepyowl]

Like a daddy long legs can hurt you, more of them get killed by us including rathe sadistic cub scouts who pull the legs off them & then their wings to my cries of stop doing it, it's cruel. Wasps, bees & hornets I can understand as they can sting, but then again they wouldn't be phobias if they were rational. just keep scorpions away from me.

[Butterfly]

Do you know, despite absolutely loathing them, i still can't kill them, they get the glass and card treatment!x

[moonsmith]

Have you seen those fly swat guns - they shoot out the swat instead of the usual tennis racket arrangement.

Don't worry Butterfly you won't kill many as its horribly inaccurate but it gives you a feeling that you have a defense.

Or

Think of it as a butterfly with high aspect ratio wings!

[hal]

They dont bother me in the slightest unless they try to attack my face then they soon get kicked outside

[wyrdewood]

We went camping in Wales the other weekend and whilst sitting watching the TV I reached for my coffee, that was ready to drink, from down by the side of my chair. As it was almost cold, I gulped it down. You know what's coming next!!!! As I was drinking the last bit I felt something in my mouth. I turned up the light and spat out, you guessed it, a big, fat, drowned Daddy Long Legs, or should I say what was left of it as I had swallowed most of it already. Even writing this now I feel like wretching!

[merrybel]

That is one of the grossest things I have ever heard, Julian. Its enormous sticky legs swimming in your belly........ ugh! Two managed to get into my bathroom the other night and when I went in they were in the bath. They had been attracted to a pool of water and got stuck in it, and all their legs fell off. I wonder if it hurts them?
When I was at school they would congregate all over the glass outside - there were millions basking in the sun. My so called friends would pick them up and throw them at me. I still dream about them.
You need to be careful, Julian, in case you turn into some sort of daddy-long-legs super hero because you've ingested one. Cranefly-man - haha.

[moonsmith]

Don't worry Julian - its all protein.

My first visit to Africa was to Malawi just at the start of the rain season. The hotel was completely covered in a big version of the daddy long-legs. Millions of them in the lobby in the rooms everywhere. I always eat the local food wherever I go and was offered something with a name in the Chechewa language. It turned out to be a small rectangle of something fried. It tasted of little more than chip fat - very greasy
When I commented that the one place that the flies seemed not to go was the hotel restaurant my fellow diners burst out laughing. You can guess what the delicacy of the day in that little fried rectangle was!

Apparently it was a very important supplement to the diet - dunno what - but something that had been missed in the dry season.

enjoy!

[wyrdewood]

Thanks Pat and Sam for putting such lovely thoughts into my head. I think one day, given 5 years or so, I may be able to take a drink without checking it first for huge, ugly bugs taking a swim. However, it can't be as bad as Malawian flies - Mmmm lovely.
Also, being veggie, I like my protein in a nice melted cheese form not flying around a light bulb.

[wyrdewood]

merrybel said:

Two managed toget into my bathroom the other night and when I went in they were in the bath. They had been attracted to a pool of water and got stuck in it, and all their legs fell off. I wonder if it hurts them?

Maybe they got drunk on the bath water and got legless!
(sound of drum roll and cymbal ting) ;D

[merrybel]

What are you saying about my bath water? It's not gin, you know, no matter what they say about me!!

[Butterfly]

yuuuuk!

[wyrdewood]

merrybel said:

What are you saying about my bath water? It's not gin, you know, no matter what they say about me!!

I do apologise. I'm sure it is the finest crystal water, carried by Nubian warriors from the banks of the river Nile in Egypt ( with maybe a G&T on the side and a few candles an stuff)