Phalangiists claim they can distinguish species by their odor (Phalangiists. The odor is undetectable to humans, except those who really get up close and personal. When they’re grabbed by the body, a nasty-smelling chemical oozes out of a few dorsal glands, coats the body, and repels predators, especially ants. Despite their long legs, they carry their bodies close to the ground.Įisner, in Secret Weapons, calls their ability to produce a noxious odor their second line of defense. death).” DLLs cannot regenerate missing legs, and if they lose both of the sensory legs, they’re toast. One researcher reporting in the Journal of Arachnology noted that the resulting “loss of fitness” is still preferable to “a catastrophic loss of fitness (e.g. They’ve even developed a unique muscle attachment that minimizes bleeding when they do have to jettison an appendage. They are found in fields and meadows, both nocturnally and on bright days.Ī DLL might shed a leg if a predator grabbed it or if a venomous invertebrate stung/bit it (it’s called “leg autotomy”).

Males are smaller-bodied and brighter-colored. When they clean themselves, which is often, they pay special attention to the second pair of legs. A startled DLL may wave these sensory legs in the air. The senses of taste, touch and smell are incorporated in the longer, second pair of their four pairs of legs. They hear via vibrations their eyes are on short stalks that look like antennae (but arachnids don’t have antennae) and their eyesight is poor. The DLL’s waist is broad, leading one author to say it resembles a rice krispies on legs (they can move pretty fast on those long legs). They are made up of two body segments, a cephalothorax (fused head and body) and an abdomen. Under the big umbrella of the class Arachnida, they belong in the order Opiliones, not with the true spiders in the order Araneae (there are some nice Greek myths about Ariadne and Arachne, and the BugLady trusts that BugFans will look them up on their own).ĭLLs have had the same basic design for the past 400 million years, give or take. Harvestman, (because the first species to be described were collected during harvest time, and because they are numerous then) are in the phylum Arthropoda (jointed legs), which consists of the classes Crustacea, Insecta and Arachnida and which, according to one author, accounts for about 80% of “living creatures.” Don’t let the eight legs and the spider-like appearance fool you Daddy longlegs are not true spiders. The original has been enhanced with a few new, educational tidbits. Harvestmen do not have silk glands, so they cannot spin webs they also lack the venom glands that true spiders possess.The BugLady is busy and offers this rerun from 4 ½ years ago. Among the obvious structural differences are harvestmen’s having one apparently unified (usually egg-shaped) body, while true spiders have clearly separate head and abdomen regions. Similar species: Though they also have long, thin legs and are also often called daddy longlegs, harvestmen (in order Opiliones) are quite different and unrelated. To distinguish it from other cellar spiders may require close examination of palps, “face” structure, carapace markings, and eye groupings.

Perhaps the most common species in our area is the longbodied cellar spider, Pholcus phalangioides. Many common spiders in this family have 8 eyes arranged into three groups: 2 in the center of the face, and a cluster of 3 on each side of the central pair. Most have oval or rounded abdomens, sometimes described as “peanut shaped.” Females build nonadhesive, unorganized, messy-looking cobwebs, usually in corners or crevices. Some species have darkened joints on their legs, giving them a “knobby-kneed” look. This movement turns them into a blur, rendering them practically invisible to potential predators. Other characteristics add to their camouflage: Their gray, tan, or whitish color, small body size, and remarkable habit of “vibrating” or bouncing rapidly in their webs when alarmed. The tarsi (“feet”) are flexible, adding to the wispy impression they give.

Cellar spiders are inconspicuous, harmless, fragile spiders with extremely long, thin legs.

Long bodied cellar spider