Limoniidae spp

Family: Limoniidae

The Limoniidae are a family of true flies, closely related to true Craneflies and are referred to as Limonid Craneflies. The most obvious characteristic that helps the observer separate true Craneflies, which belong to the family Tipulidae, from Limonid Craneflies is that when at rest Limonids tend to hold their wings back over the abdomens, rather than at an angle as in Tipulidae. This is shown below;

The second way to help identify a Limonid is the short apical segments of their maxillary palps, which are never longer than the rest of the maxillary palp (left-hand image). Whereas the apical segment in Tipulidae is much longer (right-hand image).

So we are relatively sure that our specimen below is indeed a Limoniidae, but we are not sure which.