Daddy long legs spider are they poisonous

What do Daddy-long-legs Spiders look like?

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Daddy Long Legs Spiders – the full story
Arachnophilia
The Better to Eat You With, My Dear
How poisonous are daddy

The Daddy-long-legs Spider is one of the most easily recognisable spiders as they have extremely long, skinny legs. It’s body can be up to 1cm long but legs can be much longer, depending on the species. They are a pale brown or creamy colour and can have darker markings on their legs and abdomen.

Where are Daddy Long Legs found?

Almost every house or shed in Australia has been home to the messy, tangled web of the Daddy-long-legs, especially as the weather begins to cool towards winter and the spiders seek warmth indoors. The common type of Daddy-long-legs found in suburban backyards across Australia is an introduced European spider (Pholcus phalangioides).

Fast facts:

There is a long held urban myths about Daddy-long-longs Spiders is that it is one of the most venomous spiders in the world but it’s fangs are too small to pierce human skin. Unfortunately this is not true. A Daddy-long-legs Spider can give a small bite, although it is very unlikely to happen.
A Daddy-long-legs spider can live to almost 3 years of age. In that time a female can have up to 8 clutches of 50 or more eggs.

Daddy Long Legs Spiders – the full story

The Daddy-long-legs Spider is on of the most easily recognisable spiders as they have extremely long, skinny legs. It’s body can be up to 1cm long but legs can be much longer, depending on the species.

Many of our backyard buddies find their way inside our homes and take up temporary residence, and one of the most successful and ever-present is the Daddy-long-legs spider.

They’re hard to dislike, with their spindly and delicate legs and tiny body making them one of the few spiders that even arachnophobes might be able to pick up and take outside. We remove them regularly on the end of a broom and put them outside, but somehow, they always manage to find their way back in again.

They are also suprisingly good mothers to their young. After laying her eggs the mother spider will wrap them in silk and carry them around for about 3 weeks in her mouth. Once they hatch they will ride around on their mothers back until they are ready to run off across her web and leave her protection behind. It takes about 1 year for a baby Daddy-long-legs to reach adulthood. They can then live up to another 2 years as an adult. In that time a female can have up to 8 clutches of 50 or more eggs. That’s over 400 baby spiders!

Yet despite their apparent harmlessness, Daddy-long-legs have little trouble catching, wrapping and killing much larger Huntsman spiders. They have even been known to catch Redback spiders and Funnel-web spiders, both of which are far larger and more toxic than the Daddy-long-legs.

So, what’s their secret?

Certainly not their fangs or their venom – it’s their extremely long legs.

When a Huntsman, Redback or Funnel-web is walking along, the Daddy-long-legs can simply reach down and haul the more dangerous (but shorter-legged) spider into its web. It swiftly wraps up its prey before the captor can get close enough to harm the Daddy-long-legs. Once the more deadly spider is immobilised, it is easy to bite and kill.

Larger, heavier spiders are particularly vulnerable as they walk across a slippery smooth surface. If they do become entangled in a Daddy-long-legs’ web, the smooth surface becomes treacherous because it offers no grip for the prey spider to hang on to. So, while their messy webs might make the Daddy-long-legs appear unsightly, they might well be preventing far more undesirable spiders from taking up residence in our homes.

Did you know?

There is a long held urban myths about Daddy-long-longs Spiders is that it is one of the most venomous spiders in the world but it’s fangs are too small to pierce human skin. Unfortunately this is not true! A Daddy-long-legs Spider can give a small bite, although it is very unlikely to happen. If you think you have been bitten by any type of spider it is best to seek medical attention if there is any reaction to the skin at all.

Daddy longlegs are one of the most venomous critters out there.

Of all the creepy-crawly critters out there, daddy longlegs must be the most mysterious. Are they spiders, or are they insects? Are they dangerous, or are they helpful bug eaters? If there's a daddy longlegs, is there a baby-longlegs? But there's one legend about these animals that rises above all others: Daddy longlegs are one of the most venomous animals there are, but in some cosmic joke, their fangs are too small to bite humans. Is it true? In a word: no. In more words: No, seriously, not at all, for real. Let us explain.

Arachnophilia

Here's something you probably didn't know: Daddy longlegs both are and aren't spiders. That's because "daddy longlegs" is an informal term that can refer to two separate groups of animals. If you think back to biology class, you may remember that organisms are classified by a branching family tree of terms: Kingdom is at the top and branches off into different phyla (singular "phylum"), which in turn branches off into classes, then orders, families, genuses, and finally species.

Both types of daddy longlegs are in the class Arachnida — a category that contains everything from scorpions to ticks to spiders — but they're in different orders. The most common type of daddy longlegs, which some people also call "harvestmen," are in the order Opiliones. But there's another type of daddy longlegs (these ones are sometimes called "cellar spiders" and officially called Pholcidae) that's actually a spider, since it's in the order Aranea with every other true spider you know. You can tell the difference between the spider and non-spider daddy longlegs by their body shape. Spiders have segmented bodies; the bodies of harvestmen are all in one piece.

The Better to Eat You With, My Dear

So right out of the gate, this playground legend is already kind of useless; the two kinds of daddy longlegs aren't even that closely related, so they can't both have the deadliest venom. And as a matter of fact, neither of them does.

When it comes to harvestmen, you might as well be just as afraid that a ladybug will bite you. These bugs don't have venom glands, fangs, or anything else they can use to subdue prey. They generally eat decomposing plants and animals, killing small prey here and there when the opportunity presents itself. But humans? As the saying goes, they're probably more scared of you than you are of them.

Cellar spiders do have venom and fangs, but for them, the legend just isn't based in fact: There's no evidence that their venom is toxic to humans, but there's also no evidence that their fangs can't penetrate human skin. According to entomologist Rick Vetter, there are no studies that have tested how lethal their venom is to mammals — even to lab mice. And while their fangs are pretty small, Vetter points out that they work the same way as the fearsome brown recluse spider, which is certainly able to bite humans. Most likely, a cellar spider could bite you, but it wouldn't cause much harm.

In the end, it's best to treat these creatures like any other harmless species: leave them be. If they're in your home, you could try trapping them under a glass and taking them outside. But playground legends aside, they're not a threat — no matter which daddy longlegs you're actually talking about.

This article first appeared on Curiosity.com.

How poisonous are daddy

The daddy longlegs is not harmful to humans, but they can kill redback spiders (Australian black widows). Because redback venom can kill humans, people may have believed daddy longlegs could kill us, too. Is it a myth that the daddy longlegs is the most poisonous spider on Earth? Yes, it is.

Do daddy

On the first, research has shown that daddy-long-legs venom is actually not exceptionally potent, even to insects. On the second, if it chooses to inject its venom into human skin it has the capacity to do so - a result that was famously demonstrated on an episode of Mythbusters in 2004.

Are daddy

Are Daddy Longlegs More Poisonous Than Black Widow? Daddy longlegs spiders are nowhere near as poisonous as black widows, as their venom does not harm humans. Cellar spiders are very poisonous, but only to other arachnids and insects.