Family Tipulidae - Crane Flies

Daddy-Long-Legs (UK)

From genus Tipula, that from Latin tipula (or tippula) a water spider (1) (2). (See more on this under genus Tipula.)

"Crane fly" presumably for long legs, resembling the long legged bird, the crane.

1,517 species in North America cited at Insects of Cedar Creek, but this number includes three groups that are placed in separate families at BugGuide: Limoniidae, Pediciidae, and Cylindrotomidae.

The above characteristics of Tipulidae (and the differences in Limoniidae mentioned in the See Also section below) were noted in a comment by Chen Young here:

Larva                        Pupa                        Female                        Male

There are two different naming conventions for crane flies: one for Anglo-America and one for Europe. British and American entomologists generally place all crane flies into the family Tipulidae, while European entomologists designate crane flies as making up a super-family, Tipuloidea, with three families, Tipulidae, Limoniidae, and Cylindrotomidae.

in Limoniidae:

The Craneflies of Pennsylvania (Chen Young and James Fetzner, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh)

Insects of Cedar Creek (U. of Minnesota)

Catalogue of the Crane Flies of the World classification and searchable database (Pjotr Oosterbroek, U. of Amsterdam and Netherlands Biodiversity Information Facility)

basic information plus crane fly links and literature references (Jon Gelhaus, Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia)

photos and basic info plus links to other crane fly sites (US Environmental Protection Agency)