Warmer Weather in the UK Leads to Population Explosion of Flies

The United Kingdom may soon face an invasion from below: a massive outburst of harmless, long-legged flies that could number in the billions.

Each autumn the U.K. sees an explosion of the European crane fly (Tipula paludosa), a gangly species about half an inch long referred to as a “daddy long-legs.” (In the United States, that nickname most often refers to harvestmen, a type of arachnid.) This year, though, a damp winter has let the flies’ larvae thrive in the soil, setting up a major outburst, and warm September weather stands to let the flies spread farther north than ever before.

Crane flies’ larvae thrive in damp soil, and in the U.K., it’s been an exceptionally damp year—potentially leading to an unusually large outburst.

December 2015 was the wettest December and calendar month for the country since 1910, according to the Met Office, the United Kingdom’s weather service. And the precipitation didn’t stop there. January, February, April, June, and July also brought rainfall levels above the 1981-2010 average, with some areas in England and Wales occasionally receiving more than twice the normal amount.

This year may prove to be exceptionally buggy, but when and how future crane flies burst from the earth remains uncertain, thanks to climate change.

(Source – http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/09/crane-fly-outburst-insects-flies-weather/)