The Long-Lost Snow Fly

This morning as we were shoveling the season’s first snowfall from our driveway, I wondered aloud whether this would be the winter I finally get to see another one of those wingless crane flies, sometimes referred to as “snow flies” (Limoniidae: Chionea spp.). They’re not quite as glamorous as snow scorpionflies, but they’re interesting curiosities nonetheless. It’s been eleven years since I last saw one, which means I’ve never had an opportunity to photograph one since acquiring a decent macro lens.

After we finished shoveling, we headed out for a quick walk in the woods behind our house. We had only made it to the corner of the yard when I had to dash back inside to get my camera, because a Chionea was standing there waiting for us! Julia kept an eye on it while I was gone; it wandered into one of our footprints, and had just finished climbing back out when I returned:

It alternated between walking and standing still for seconds at a time, so I was able to try various angles and levels of magnification:

Something I didn’t realize until I was processing these photos is that these flies aren’t quite wingless. In all true flies (Diptera), the hind wings have been reduced to little knobby-looking things called halteres. I knew that Chionea species had these, but on this individual you can see that the forewings are still present too—they’ve just been reduced to a fraction of the size of the halteres. If I had known that when I was taking these pictures I could have done a better job showing it, but in this cropped-down side view you can at least see what I’m talking about:

The onset of winter is no reason to stop looking for bugs, as I’ve previously written about here and here and here.