Paglo Barroeta came across what looked like a clump of black hair, and he wondered what it was. So he decided to poke it to find out. Paglo, use a stick!
No, I’m gonna poke it with my finger, and so he did, humming a little tune. That soon turned to a cry of dismay when thousands of tiny spiders came running toward him. It was their little spider legs that made the black thing look like hair.
The spiders were daddy longlegs, familiar to every child as common summertime bugs. Also called grandaddy longlegs or harvestmen, there are over 6,500 species of these arachnids.
True to their name, they have long legs in proportion to their bodies.
Unlike other spiders, they can swallow whole chunks of food, not just liquids; also, unlike other spiders, they eat plants and fungi as well as meat.
They have a single pair of eyes that look sideways and a scent gland for defense (other bugs think it smells bad).
Another defense they use is to detach a leg, which distracts the predator while they make an escape.There’s a myth that daddy longlegs are extremely poisonous, and we’re only safe from them because their fangs are too small to bite us.
That’s actually not true. They don’t have fangs or venom glands, so they’re not good hunters. For that reason, they have to rely mostly on plant matter and scavenged meat. They’re perfectly harmless to humans, so don’t be scared, Paglo!
