Daddy Longlegs (Harvestmen) Missouri Department of Conservation

Most of us are familiar with the common, harmless, spiderlike “harvestman,” with its remarkably long, wiggly legs. We can easily see differences between harvestmen and spiders. The body is a simple oval, and it’s usually hard to tell where the “head” ends and the segmented “abdomen” begins. They also lack silk and venom glands, and they only have two eyes. Lacking silk glands, they never build webs. They lack venom, but they emit a weird odor when disturbed. Their chelicerae (mouthparts) are too small to bite people. Sometimes there are tiny yellow, orange, or red blobs stuck on the body or legs: These are mites parasitizing the harvestman. Similar species: Long-legged cellar spiders (in the spider family Pholcidae) are sometimes called “daddy longlegs,” but they are definitely spiders: They weave cluttered, irregular webs in the upper corners of basements, caves, and similar places and clearly have two distinct body regions: an oval abdomen plus a rounded head. They are generally much smaller and more delicate, too.

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Inside

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