Busting myths about daddy-long-legs spiders

October 8, 2023 1:02 AM

Busting myths about daddy-long-legs spiders. You probably have a daddy-long-legs in your house right now, but there's so much about them that is commonly misunderstood.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries (55 comments total)

> Studies have found, for example, venom from daddy-long-legs is much less toxic than that from the black widow spider

well that's a relief, lemme just go make sure
posted by lkc at 1:30 AM on October 8, 2023 [7 favorites]

Daddy-long-legs Georg sounds like he has an easier gig.
posted by sebastienbailard at 3:09 AM on October 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

I hadn’t realized the distinction between Australian daddy long legs (spiders) and US daddy long legs (not spiders). I think the US ones with their rotund, single segment bodies are kind of cute. Like a gangly teddy bear.
posted by eirias at 3:12 AM on October 8, 2023 [19 favorites]

While in the UK a daddy long legs is a crane fly. Which made it quite confusing when I found people on the internet talking about them (supposedly/not) being venomous.
posted by Lorc at 3:17 AM on October 8, 2023 [9 favorites]

While in the UK a daddy long legs is a crane fly
Except in Scotland where that type of crane fly can be a Jenny-long-legs.
I see that in parts of the ,US crane flies of this type are called Gollywhoppers - and I propose we all move to using that awesome, and gender neutral name immediately.
posted by rongorongo at 3:42 AM on October 8, 2023 [4 favorites]

That article is an extreme case of debunking myths I'd never heard. Still, I now know more about non-daddy long leg non-spiders than I used to. At least the long legs remain true.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 3:50 AM on October 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

The "This is about Australia, not the US" distinction was important for me. I started reading the article, got to 'funnel web spiders' as being poisonous and relatively common, and started worrying about those misty creations out in the yard! I looked it up - very different creatures in Australia. Whew. Same goes for the part about daddy longlegs having fangs and being able to bite. I figured I'd be too worried about a tiny bite, safe as it would be, to safely pick one up to move it anymore. I'm glad they can still be my simply-cannot-bite-you friends.

But the article doesn't really make it clear: Did Adam Savage get bitten by an Australian daddy longlegs, or a supposedly fang-less American one?
posted by Flight Hardware, do not touch at 4:37 AM on October 8, 2023 [5 favorites]

My brother found a black widow hanging out in his garage and I was afraid for him from a couple thousand miles away. Respectful fear for nature's venomous creatures seems respectful.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 4:58 AM on October 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

The Australian ones are, but the US ones aren't.

Just a few weeks ago I nearly pulled a "well actually" on someone but the better part of me decided to look it up to confirm. I am glad I did. (They were taling about the Australian ones.)
posted by brundlefly at 5:39 AM on October 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

That article is a bit confusing - it seems to say that North Americans only have the one species of arachnids that is called the "daddy long legs." The 2 main species of arachnids called "daddy long legs" that exist in North America (and much of the rest of the world), are Pholcidae and Opiliones (the so-called harvestman). I too never heard that myth that they were poisonous. Is this a regional myth?
posted by Ashwagandha at 5:55 AM on October 8, 2023 [5 favorites]

Is this a regional myth?
I grew up in Oklahoma hearing that daddy long legs (referring to harvestmen) had the most powerful poison, but couldn't bite you - and I heard the same myth two weeks ago in southern New Jersey and had to bite my tongue to avoid a long argument.
posted by Flight Hardware, do not touch at 6:11 AM on October 8, 2023 [7 favorites]

I too never heard that myth that they were poisonous. Is this a regional myth?

I think, in the US, the general (mis)belief is spider=deadly poisonous, despite reality. Snakes have a similar PR problem.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:11 AM on October 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

I’ve heard about the deadly but too smal to bite myth on East Coast US.

So interesting that we have that myth even though it applies to a totally different species.
posted by Miko at 6:23 AM on October 8, 2023

well that's a relief, lemme just go make sure

Wait a second here! How do you plan to accomplish this comparison?
posted by NoMich at 6:25 AM on October 8, 2023

The irony of a spider supposedly having the most deadly poison in the world but a bite too feeble to deliver that poison is what gives the myth such long legs.
posted by pracowity at 6:34 AM on October 8, 2023 [53 favorites]

pracowity, get out.
posted by brundlefly at 7:15 AM on October 8, 2023 [11 favorites]

Growing up in Michigan, U.S., I was always told they were harmless to people, but that never stopped me from freaking out in their presence. I think that spiders not biting me over the years is rock-solid proof that they're very tolerant, very forgiving creatures when it comes to unhinged humans.
posted by heyho at 7:16 AM on October 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

While in the UK a daddy long legs is a crane fly
Except in Scotland where that type of crane fly can be a Jenny-long-legs.
I see that in parts of the ,US crane flies of this type are called Gollywhoppers - and I propose we all move to using that awesome, and gender neutral name immediately.
posted by rongorongo at 10:42 AM on October 8


As anything with the suffix 'Golly' has unfortunate history in the UK - I strongly suggest we don't.

-.-
posted by Faintdreams at 7:22 AM on October 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

Chiming in. Grew up in rural northern California outside Sacramento. It was common knowledge in the early 90s that daddy long legs would totally kill you if they could bite you but their fangs are too small :D
posted by AngelWuff at 7:51 AM on October 8, 2023 [5 favorites]

I too had heard that rumor. its funny, cause I'm an extreme arachnophobe, but DLLs bother me the least. they cover a large area, but with such little volume. I even let them stay in my house (but not in the shower!)
posted by supermedusa at 8:41 AM on October 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

The first time I heard the "poisonous but unable to bite" myth was when Mythbusters tested it, but with what we call 'basement spiders', rather than harvestmen arachnids which I thought were the only 'daddy longlegs', so I watched with bizarre fascination like I accidentally got a TV broadcast from the Berenstein Dimension. Result: they're spiders and if you piss them off they bite, but like 99% of spiders it's barely an irritation, like, you know, something bit you.

I only don't like 'surprise spiders', i.e. suddenly appear crawling on me or dangling near my face. Otherwise, they're just bros and I leave them alone. I saw one in the stairwell at home and leaned down to get a closer look, and it reacted to me fearfully (turned towards me, contracted its legs), so really I'm the monstrous, deadly thing here, not the little wolf spider dude who I hope is eating well.
posted by AzraelBrown at 8:47 AM on October 8, 2023 [11 favorites]

I am deeply confused about the Australian vs. American nomenclature. The spider identified in the article as the Australian daddy longlegs is the same kind I grew up with in California. The harvestman doesn't look familiar to me at all.
posted by aws17576 at 8:49 AM on October 8, 2023 [4 favorites]

The harvestman doesn't look familiar to me at all.

Harvestmen don't spin webs, don't live in human houses, they walk around on the ground and like damp foresty areas -- so if you lived in a southern California city -- hot, dry, urban -- you probably didn't have much of a chance to see one wandering around your yard. When they're cold they turn into a kitten that you want to pet (tw arachnophobia but I think they're cute). When my daughter was a kid she checked out a book about keeping these in a terrarium but we never actually did it.
posted by AzraelBrown at 9:00 AM on October 8, 2023 [5 favorites]

I only don't like 'surprise spiders', i.e. suddenly appear crawling on me or dangling near my face.

Or crawling out of the CUP BRA that I kept in my closet (because it wouldn't fit in my drawer) and put on without checking for spiders BECAUSE WHO ASSUMES A SPIDER WILL BE LURKING IN ONE'S LINGERIE.

The couple times I assisted at a funeral (in the Southeast), I was astonished to discover black widows on basically all the elaborate flower arrangements? It changed my understanding of a black widow spider from "exotic, deadly threat" to "omnipresent, deadly threat," which is fun.

I also heard the "daddy long legs are more toxic than black widows" thing growing up in both the South and the Midwest. Late 90s, if anyone is keeping track. I guess I didn't believe it because I have never been particularly frightened of daddy-long-legs, but meeting a dozen black widow spiders was appropriately terrifying.
posted by grandiloquiet at 9:00 AM on October 8, 2023 [10 favorites]

So, it's not that daddy-long-legs can't bite us, they probably choose not to...

Of course not. Not when they can palpate you into submission with their skinny ticklish legs or get their sticky webs on you!

We have a few cellar spiders here in the desert--in our basement of course. I don't see them as when I was a kid, which makes sense, because I grew up in the moister, cooler climate of Pennsylvania where there are true cellars.

Mostly what we have are these so-called giant house spiders. I don't call them giant, but I do call them "get a glass and take them outside" to my husband.

such long legs
posted by pracowity
ISWYDT...

and I approve.
posted by BlueHorse at 9:24 AM on October 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

AzraelBrown lol "surprise spiders" is what I call them too!! talk about a panic attack!
posted by supermedusa at 9:31 AM on October 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

> My brother found a black widow hanging out in his garage and I was afraid for him from a couple thousand miles away. Respectful fear for nature's venomous creatures seems respectful.

My brother works outdoors for a local marine contracting company, and he's been bitten by black widows at least 6-7 times when none of his co-workers has over almost a decade. They (the spiders) seem to seek him out in particular. My brother's void cat also bites him during their daily roughhousing. I suggested to my brother that the widows are just giving him "love nips" like his cat does, but he was not amused.

Come to think of it, I seem to recall our sister also biting him a couple times too when we were kids. I never considered before that there might be a common cause here.

American daddylonglegs, at least the ones here in Florida, are harmless. I've frequently scooped them up barehanded to relocate outdoors; if I don't, my housecats will brutally murder and/or eat them.
posted by Fiberoptic Zebroid and The Hypnagogic Jerks at 9:31 AM on October 8, 2023

I had a girlfriend once who told me that daddy long legs were the most poisonous spider ever but their fangs were too small to break human skin. She also insisted that we send conspiracy theory CDs to friends and family for Christmas one year, so.
posted by grumpybear69 at 9:40 AM on October 8, 2023 [4 favorites]

BECAUSE WHO ASSUMES A SPIDER WILL BE LURKING IN ONE'S LINGERIE.

G’day, mate.
posted by zamboni at 10:05 AM on October 8, 2023 [7 favorites]

I've never heard that daddy longlegs were poisonous, and I've always known spiders to be benign and harmless to people, but I did actually get bitten by one once, through the thin skin on my calf. I must have provoked it somehow. Not terribly painful but it did leave a mark.
posted by Flashman at 11:01 AM on October 8, 2023

#notallspiders
posted by supermedusa at 11:22 AM on October 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

As anything with the suffix 'Golly' has unfortunate history in the UK - I strongly suggest we don't.

This is a new myth to me, but happy to bust it. There's only one word anyone would know that has the prefix 'golly' in British English. That it's a racist term in no way indicates that some other word from a US dialect that begins with those letters is also a racist term, or that British people would think so. So you at least have one Brit's permission to keep calling them 'Gollywhoppers'. Presumably it's just a contraction of 'Golly, what a whopper!'
posted by pipeski at 12:32 PM on October 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

The irony of a spider supposedly having the most deadly poison in the world but a bite too feeble to deliver that poison is what gives the myth such long legs.

I have heard and read the same myths and rebuttals in regards to cellar spiders because they fit the same profile: deadliest venom + physically least robust arachnid known to science. Sometimes cellar spiders are known as daddy longlegs spiders to confuse matters even more. The thing I like about harvestmen aka bog standard daddy longlegs is they have but two eyes which can't see more than light or dark mounted in a turret on their backs. Back in the extreme prehistoric days they had four! And the break up of the supercontinent Pangaea can be traced though the reductive 4-to-2 evolution. Man, I loves me some 305 million year old microfossils. Also, that there were cellar spiders so long before there were cellars into which to move. How cool methinks is that? And you?
posted by y2karl at 1:27 PM on October 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

Yes daddy longlegs are harmless, but I have a memory of a terrifying incident. I was very young, maybe 5 or 6, and my family and I were on vacation. Pretty sure this happened in my home state of Arkansas. We were driving somewhere and pulled into a rest area, the kind that also double as a state park with camping spaces and picnic tables and whatnot.

It was a beautiful summer day, and we snagged a picnic table and started unloading our stuff for lunch. We hadn't been there a minute when a bunch of daddy longlegs swarmed over the table. Dozens of them, all at once. We all jumped up, my parents grabbed the food but actually didn't manage to get all of it: there was wave of the things that seemingly came out of nowhere. There must've been a nest of them and we disturbed it when we sat down. Even as we backed out, they longlegs completely covered that table and the surrounding ground. I was freaked out, but my dad was kind of laughing and reassured me they were harmless. I still have that image in my mind, of a concrete picnic table completely coated with hundreds and hundreds of the things.
posted by zardoz at 1:59 PM on October 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

In other spider-myth news - I recently read that it is unlikely we actually swallow eight spiders a year while asleep, because spiders, whose whole deal usually involves being sensitive to vibrations, finds our whole deal - namely having heartbeats, snoring and farting whilst being asleep - intensely disturbing and well worth avoiding.

Being something of an arachnophobe, I have stepped up my endeavours in many of these areas.
posted by Sparx at 2:58 PM on October 8, 2023 [11 favorites]

While in the UK a daddy long legs is a crane fly
Except in Scotland where that type of crane fly can be a Jenny-long-legs.
I see that in parts of the ,US crane flies of this type are called Gollywhoppers - and I propose we all move to using that awesome, and gender neutral name immediately.
--rongorongo

I have always heard them called "Mosquito Dragons" because they look like giant mosquitoes. (Similarly called Mosquito Hawks in other places). As kids we were told "They look like giant mosquitoes but they actually eat mosquitos", which turn out to be a myth--they are harmless to humans and to mosquitoes.

The harvestman 'Daddy Long Legs' does eat mosquitoes and other insects, possibly even Mosquito Dragons, so you could say that one type of Daddy Long Legs eats another type of Daddy Long Legs.
posted by eye of newt at 4:08 PM on October 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

In other spider-myth news - I recently read that it is unlikely we actually swallow eight spiders a year while asleep

Yep. Spiders may be simple beasts, but they ain't DUMB. You're not going to last long if you just wander into other critters' mouths all the time.
posted by brundlefly at 4:33 PM on October 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

Another thing I like about daddy longlegs is that they chew their food and swallow. No icky stick and suck protein liquefying enzymes involved.
posted by y2karl at 4:55 PM on October 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

You're not going to last long if you just wander into other critters' mouths all the time.

This is the kind of no-can-do attitude I would expect from a fly.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:57 PM on October 8, 2023 [5 favorites]

I called crane flies "mosquito hawks."

I hadn’t realized the distinction between Australian daddy long legs (spiders) and US daddy long legs (not spiders)

I hadn't realized either, but trying to confirm it, it may not be true.

According to this UC Riverside Department of Entomology page, several species of daddy long leg spiders are in fact quite common in the west of the US and more likely to be observed in daily life than the mostly nocturnal opilionids.

Also they get nice pedantry points on that page for being stickler about the difference between venomous, poisonous and toxic.
posted by mark k at 5:02 PM on October 8, 2023

This is the kind of no-can-do attitude I would expect from a fly.

Hey, now. I'm only part fly.
posted by brundlefly at 5:05 PM on October 8, 2023 [6 favorites]

Even tremendously venomous spiders often do something called 'dry biting' when they are biting defensively against a much larger creature. They will withhold their venom and rely on the pain and surprise from the fang puncture alone. Many of Australia's truly venomous spiders do this - making venom is metabolically expensive, and they need it to hunt. If all they want you to do is bugger off and leave them alone, they'll save it for finding their dinner later.
posted by Jilder at 5:21 PM on October 8, 2023 [4 favorites]

Growing up in Minnesota, I never saw a harvestman. Our daddies long legs were definitely Pholcidae. I've also only heard the myth about their venom in the context of debunking it.

I didn't have any particular name for crane flies, either, but my ex called them mosquito eaters.
posted by eruonna at 5:48 PM on October 8, 2023

I like them. When I go camping (east coast US) , the daddy long legs will often come out and hang by my picnic table. There is nothing funnier than watching one try to cart away a kernel of popcorn - moseying away into the dark with a giant white hat!
posted by gemmy at 7:24 PM on October 8, 2023 [6 favorites]

I didn't have any particular name for crane flies, either, but my ex called them mosquito eaters.

Or hunters as I recall from my Salina, Kansas sojourn in high school.

If all they want you to do is bugger off and leave them alone, they'll save it for finding their dinner later.

from Ozzie Ma'am Venomous Critters Review
posted by y2karl at 7:25 PM on October 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

I can never forgive the American Daddy Long Legs from threatening Jonny Quest.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 7:36 PM on October 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

Of course he was pretty good with Leslie Caron.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 7:39 PM on October 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

Our local NPR affiliate had an arachnid expert on the radio recently, and I learned a couple of things:
- the common house spiders in western Washington are non-native (he didn’t elaborate)
- the spiders were suddenly aware of this time of year are males, looking for a mate (this is true both indoors and outdoors)
posted by dbmcd at 8:53 PM on October 8, 2023

I've never worried about venomous spiders but I do freak out about spider size and speed and let me tell you British House Spiders, while harmless, are big and terrifyingly fast and right about now, as it starts getting cold, they start invading homes.
posted by srboisvert at 1:50 AM on October 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

The always excellent British Arachnological Society have a useful and informative factsheet on Daddy long legs spiders (or Cellar Spiders) (pdf)
posted by sarahdal at 3:28 AM on October 9, 2023

Hey, now. I'm only part fly.

Damn it. I could have made a "Pretty Fly For a White Guy" joke here.
posted by brundlefly at 5:47 AM on October 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

I have always heard them called "Mosquito Dragons" because they look like giant mosquitoes. (Similarly called Mosquito Hawks in other places). As kids we were told "They look like giant mosquitoes but they actually eat mosquitos", which turn out to be a myth--they are harmless to humans and to mosquitoes.

We grew up calling them Mosquito Hawks, and boy, it was the year 2023 I found out they did not, in fact, hunt and eliminate mosquitos as a favor to humanity. And I was pissed.

I grew up with the Harvestman Daddy Long Legs and always knew them to be safe to handle, but had heard about the poison myth at some point in my life. It was some time before I learned they were referred to as Harvestman which in a way makes them a lot creepier. We have cellar spiders in our house and typically, if they don't bug us, we don't bug them. It's only the nasty recluses that get an instant death.
posted by Atreides at 7:14 AM on October 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

As a kid, I was not especially afraid of spiders EXCEPT daddy long legs, which creeped me out. Then I found out they weren't spiders and weren't mean, and began to lose my fear of them. And then I found out they were called HARVESTMEN. Fear back.
posted by acrasis at 10:36 AM on October 9, 2023 [5 favorites]

it's like there was a Daddy Long Legs who got pissed for not getting any respect and hired a rebranding agency to give them a more fierce name and BOOM, Harvestmen.


What are they even harvesting. Souls?
posted by Atreides at 10:58 AM on October 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

Or crawling out of the CUP BRA that I kept in my closet (because it wouldn't fit in my drawer) and put on without checking for spiders BECAUSE WHO ASSUMES A SPIDER WILL BE LURKING IN ONE'S LINGERIE.

Elvira?
posted by a faded photo of their beloved at 11:03 AM on October 9, 2023 [2 favorites]