The other day I happened to be looking at precisely the spot on the lawn where one of these weird, gangly insects first saw light of day. The forelimbs emerged like disembodied antennae. Slowly the cranefly levered out its tubular body. Although fully developed it had emerged from the pupa case looking like a half-formed blob, the limbs, wings and body only disentangling in the warmth of the sunlight. The way it bulbed out of the earth reminded me of that moment in Terminator Two when we first catch a glimpse of the shape-shifting robot, curled naked in foetal posture.
It's the only point of comparison between the relentless terminator and a cranefly, because the insect seems to have the most casual grasp on life of any creature I know. Yesterday I was given a graphic demonstration. Noticing one on the path I tried to put it out of harm's way and, having picked it up, it took flight, but not before it relinquished one of its legs to my safekeeping.
Possibly the adult creature's haplessness is a way of lulling us into a false complacency. That way we overlook the fact that in larval form the cranefly is itself a relentless devourer of crops and, until the advent of chemical pesticides, was a major scourge known as the leatherjacket.