Yesterday , Uzzi and I were lounging , chewing plug , when Uzzi read , “ What ’s that ? ” There was a long - legged , spider - like matter cower along his back . Uzzi twitched it off , and it start away . Last night , we looked it up on line . It was a harvestman . Some people , include our mummy , call them daddy longlegs .
Phalangium opilio are often false forspiders , but they ’re not . Spiders and harvestmen are both arachnids , but harvestmen belong to their own order , Opiliones . spider have a clear partition between their caput and abdomens , but harvestmen ’s bodies are fuse into a unmarried oval- or testicle - shaped unit . spider havesilkglands for WWW - construction , but harvestmen do n’t . Also , wanderer liquify quarry before run through it , but harvestmen can chew solid food .
There are more than 6,500 species of harvestmen worldwide . They ’re found on every continent except Antarctica , and they ’ve been around a very tenacious time . Harvestman fogy found in the Rhynie Chert beds of Scotland are more than 400 million years old !
Harvestmen have a single set of eyes and eight spindly leg that are much , much longer than their bodies . They ca n’t see well , so they use their extra - recollective second hardening of legs as sensory organs to feel where they ’re going . They also have scent secretor in them that free nasty - smelling fluid when a harvestman is frightened .
Phalangium opilio leg come off very easily , so sometimes you ’ll see one with missing leg . As long as it has at least one of its second span of legs and enough of its other leg to get around on , it ’ll be o.k. . A creepy thing : If a branch fall off , it twinge and jerks for awhile . Ew ! Scientists think this is to draw in the aid of marauder , allow the daddy longlegs to skitter aside . Another thing harvestman do when confronted by something that scares them is to bob their bodies up and down as though they ’re doing pushups .
Harvestmen like one another ; they sometimes pile up into large group with their legs twined together . In some metal money , s the male gathers eggs from multiple partners and then guards and cleans them until they hatch . Harvestmen feed on small insects , decayed creature matter , and the juice offruits and vegetables .
In olden days , country people thought that if they picked up a harvestman , it would point in the direction theircattlewere grazing or , if they lost something , in the direction they should appear . They also thought that if they kill a daddy longlegs , it would rain .
Some the great unwashed think that the raciness of a harvestman is fatal , but they ’re incorrect . In fact , harvestmen do n’t have venom in their oral cavity parts , and they do n’t bite . If you desire to , you could let a harvestman walk on yoy — Uzzi says it tickles — but be deliberate not to damage its long , fragile legs .
« More Mondays with Martok »
