There are 15 interesting facts about Daddy Longlegs.
A curious person can be a double-edged sword.On the other hand, you learn a lot.I looked up arachnids before I went to bed earlier this month.When I found some interesting information on daddy longlegs, I called Ron Clouse, who has been studying the arachnids for a decade.He says he does everything from collecting the data to analyzing it to doing the papers and lab tests.He told us a few interesting facts about daddy longlegs.
They are arachnids, but they are more related to scorpions than to spiders.They don't have silk, have only one pair of eyes, and have a fused body.
At summer camp, you heard that daddy longlegs was the most poisonous creature in the world, but with fangs too weak to bite you.Not true.They can't make venom or have fangs.According to Clouse, the rumor might have started when an American tabloid retells a study about the venom of a daddy longlegs in Australia.The crane fly is a creature that sometimes goes by the name daddy longlegs.
Clouse says that the fossil of a daddy longlegs from Scotland is at least 400 million years old.This fossil is very similar to the long-legged species we see today.Daddy longlegs split off from scorpions about 400 million years ago.This is about 200 million years before the dinosaurs appeared.
In North America, the reason for at least part of their name is that they have long, thin legs.There are different names for them.Clouse says that the common names in other regions reflect different attributes of the species common to those areas.The large, short-legged forms in South America are often referred to by their odors.Even their scientific name, Opiliones, refers to them as being associated with good pasture, harvest season, or perhaps even their resemblance to shepherds on stilts or the shape of a scythe.
There are arachnids on every continent.They are usually found under rocks, in leaf litter, and inside caves.In tropical areas, the moist climate and thick foliage allow them to live in lots of places.Some of the most common daddy longlegs are small and out of sight in the leaf litter on the forest floor.There are some tiny ones in the leaf litter that the average person doesn't see.
There could be as many as 10,000 species of daddy longlegs.Clouse says that they are describing new ones all the time.They are very bad at getting around, so they tend to have lots of species, because the minute a river flows between two different populations or a mountain rises and cuts one population off from another, they split into two new species.
Daddy longlegs can look different depending on where they live and each species has a small range.In Pennsylvania, they have small bodies and long legs.The type that Clouse studies is tiny and has short, thick legs.In 2012 a species with a legspan of 13 inches was discovered in Laos, while others in the same family have spines and bright colors.Clouse says it's difficult to think of a type that isn't interesting.
A bunch of daddy longlegs run at the camera when a guy pokes what appears to be a huge tangle of hair on the vine.If you haven't seen it, it's embedded above.Clouse says that scientists don't know why they do this, but they have some ideas.He thinks they might do this when the conditions become dry.They may be herding to lower their chances of being eaten.Maybe they are trying to strengthen their defenses.
You would think that creatures with legs like these would move a bit, but that is not the case.The populations of long-legged species near the coast of Brazil do not get around at all.Clouse says that they don't go anywhere.Their day is like this: They are in a crevice until about 7 o'clock, when they come walking out and they sit on a leaf all night long.When the sun comes up, they will walk back to the crevice.The long legs are for male-male competition or showing off to females because they don't use them.
Clouse says that the reason they don't travel a lot is because of their need for humidity and their own behavior.You would expect someone to evolve the ability to just get up and get around after 40 million years.They really don't.
Birds, Frogs, and lizards eat daddy longlegs.The aggregation mentioned above is one of the strategies the arachnids have.Clouse says that the most obvious feature to avoid predation is to produce chemical excretions from their bodies.Daddy longlegs are usually well camouflaged.During the day many of them hide in crevasses, and when disturbed they usually curl up and remain motionless for several minutes.If you live in a leaf litter with dirt and debris and little pieces of deadwood, they are the right color brown.If something stops moving, they can't see it anymore.It disappears for them.Clouse made a video of a man playing dead here.
Many species do something called leg threading, where they slide one leg at a time through the little pincers by their mouths.Other species may groom themselves in other ways, but in general this behavior is very important to keep parasites off the body.You can see small red mites on many of them in places that they can't reach.
The bigger species tend to live for less than two years, but the tiny ones can live up to seven years.Clouse says that it is not possible to tell by body size how long they will live.Many insects can survive several seasonal cycles as an adult.After a few months as a juvenile, the long-legged ones we see in the U.S. live only a short time as an adult.
If you were a kid who plucked one of these creatures' legs, you will feel a little guilty.There will be an article cut off on the end.Clouse says they probably got bitten by something.Daddy longlegs, once they are fully grown, don't molt anymore.Clouse says that if an immature daddy longlegs, what we call a nymph, lost a leg or had an injury, it could very well get repaired.There would be at least one leg starting or developing when it comes back.Many of the big, long legged ones have at least six legs.It's bad news for species that voluntarily shed legs to get away from predators or in species where males fight and attempt to break off their opponents' hind legs with their large spines.
In the field, where these big ones are, the frustration of my colleagues is that they always seem to come upon them already eating something.It is difficult to tell if they caught it or just ran across it.The bottom line is that they don't have fangs or strong pincers.Some of the little ones seem to have muscular pincers, which allows them to grab and crush tiny bugs in the leaf litter.Most of them don't seem to be able to do much hunting.We think they just eat bits of carcass, leftovers, and detritus.Not a very exciting diet.
Some species are so small and hard to spot that no one really knows how many eggs they lay.He says that, in many cases, the males have special glands that the females don't have, and that's all we know about those little seed-like ones.It seems like they make some kind of chemical to attract females.
Clouse says that the male creates a packet of sperm and extrudes it into a spherical package for the female.It is not clear what will happen next.The female probably opens the package and takes the sperm inside, where it will stay until it meets the eggs and fertilizes.
The rituals of bigger species are easier to observe, and Clouse has gotten an eyeful.He says that he has seen some big ones in Brazil.He touches her and makes a lot of decisions about what's going on here.Clouse says that most daddy longlegs species mate with the male depositing sperm inside the female.It's not entirely clear what she does with it.Clouse and his colleagues once observed a big female in Brazil laying 30 eggs on a leaf.He says that she produces a concentrated substance, which when it hits the moist air expands and makes a really nice Jelly.It is likely to keep fungus and stuff off.