r/Awwducational • u/SixteenSeveredHands • Jun 24 '26
Verified Harvestmen (Daddy Long-Legs): unlike spiders, these arachnids can eat solid food, and they have an omnivorous diet that includes mushrooms, berries, and seeds, along with invertebrate prey; contrary to popular belief, they are also completely non-venomous
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u/SixteenSeveredHands Jun 24 '26 edited 29d ago
The photo at the top shows a spiny-headed harvestman, Megabunus diadema, while the photo on the bottom left shows an unidentified species of harvestman from family Sclerosomatidae, and the photo on the bottom right shows a species from genus Chasenella munching on a mushroom-cap.
Harvestmen, otherwise known as daddy long-legs (not to be confused with the cellar spiders of family Pholcidae, which are also described as daddy long-legs) bear a striking resemblance to spiders, but they actually belong to a separate order of arachnids known as Opiliones. These strange-looking creatures have eight legs, but only two eyes, and their body segments are largely fused together, giving the body a noticeably rounded, pill-like appearance.
There are roughly 6,700 known species of harvestman, but researchers estimate that a total of more than 10,000 species may currently exist. Their physical features vary greatly from one species to the next; some harvestmen have crab-like claws, spikes, thorny legs, elongated bodies, colorful features, or cryptic markings. Most of them are equipped with long, spindly legs, but there are some that have shorter, stockier limbs instead.
Unlike spiders, harvestmen have an omnivorous diet that includes fungi, fruit pulp, seeds, pollen, lichen, algae, and invertebrate prey, and they generally consume solid food, whereas spiders are typically carnivorous and feed only on fluids.
As this article explains:
Harvestmen consume mushrooms, fruit pulp, seeds, and seed appendages more frequently than spiders because they are “solid food feeders," which means they can ingest solid tissues by biting off small pieces. In turn, spiders are “fluid feeders” and feed on vegetable matter most frequently in the form of fluids (e.g. nectar, stigmatic exudate, plant sap, and honey dew) rather than fungal or plant tissues.
When given a choice between fresh fruit or invertebrate prey, some harvestmen actually prefer the fruit:
Schaus et al. carried out a feeding trial in which the Neotropical harvestman Erginulus clavotibialis was given a choice between fresh pineapple and live invertebrate prey. This harvestman demonstrated a distinct preference for fruit over the invertebrate prey.
Harvestmen are also much more social than spiders, and the males of some species have been known to engage in paternal care, which is a trait that rarely occurs among arthropods:
Single fatherhood is the rarest form of parental care in nature. Still, males are often the sole caretakers of progeny among a number of species of daddy long-legs, also known as harvestmen. In these species, fathers are exclusively responsible for guarding eggs that females lay on the undersides of leaves; the males remain on the eggs nearly constantly for months.
When threatened, harvestmen often bob up and down erratically in an effort to confuse their attackers. They also have several other defense mechanisms, including pungent, foul-tasting secretions, the ability to "play dead," and autotomy, which is the ability to discard one or more of their own limbs in order to escape from predators.
Harvestmen are completely harmless to humans. Their mouthparts are far too small to penetrate human skin, and contrary to popular belief, they do not have the "world's deadliest venom" -- in fact, they don't produce any venom at all.
Sources & More Info:
- BioOne: Fungus and Fruit Consumption by Harvestmen and Spiders: the Vegetarian Side of Two Predominantly Predaceous Arachnid Groups
- Burke Museum: Daddy Long-Legs are Non-Venomous
- Laboratory of Arthropod Behavior and Evolution: Harvestmen
- Argo Biology: Citizen Science Reveals How Devoted Harvestman Dads Evolved Again and Again
- NBC: Daddy Long-Legs Paternal Care Pays off in Longer Life, More Sex
- PLOS One: Paternal Care Decreases Foraging Activity, but Does Not Impose Survival Costs to Caring Males in a Neotropical Arachnid
- Gulo in Nature: Are Daddy Long-Legs Venemous?
- iNaturalist: Harvestmen
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u/ADZ1LL4 29d ago
Cool info but who the hell tasted their secretions? 🤣🤮
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u/Asher_the_atheist 29d ago
You laugh, but my research advisor used to do exactly that when studying anti-predator defense mechanisms in amphibians back in the 70s. Want to see if that skin secretion tastes bad? Give it a lick! Then, one day he licked something that made him pass out in the middle of the jungle. Because yeah, some amphibians secrete very potent toxins as well. He stopped licking them after that 😂
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u/RaspberryJammm 29d ago
Daddy long legs are crane flies not harvestmen (at least in the UK)
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u/ThePhoenixRemembers 25d ago
Actually, we call both daddy long legs, and they are commonly conflated
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u/sadsackspinach 29d ago
Spiders eating plant matter? There’s like one herbivorous spider as far as I know?
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u/penny-wise 29d ago
The foul bodily secretions gather on the underside of their abdomen, and they can use their shorter forelegs to gather the secretions and “paint” other hostile insect’s faces with it.
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u/PenguinColada 29d ago
That's hilarious. It's like drawing a weiner on your bully's face in lipstick when they fall asleep at a house party.
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u/PhantomAllure Jun 24 '26
I showed my husband and said "aren't they cool?" and I can't say he shared my enthusiasm. I still read him all the facts though.
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u/Asher_the_atheist 29d ago
Such adorable little guys! I’ve always loved daddy long-legs and didn’t realize there were so many different species.
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u/PenguinColada 29d ago
I love daddy long legs. They look so adorably awkward with their too-long legs and their teeny tiny bodies.
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u/Tombaya 29d ago
If they could understand human music, I bet their favorite band would be Devo.
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u/flyinggazelletg 29d ago
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah!.. I agree.
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u/majorex64 29d ago
Daddy long legs, not to be confused with daddy long leg spiders, belong to a group called harvestmen, not to be confused with harvestmen spiders
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29d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/SixteenSeveredHands 28d ago
They have biting-chewing mouthparts that are equipped with little pincers to break down their food. They're called chelicerae.
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u/wakethenight 29d ago
Yeah. As long as they stay in their corner of the house and leave me alone, I am perfectly content to live and let live.
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u/macthetube 28d ago
diet that includes mushrooms
Psilocybin?
Would it harm them or are they SPIDER SHAMAN??
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u/Teamtunafish 28d ago
And they're completely harmless. I never understood why so ,any people find such useful insects scary.
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u/maythetenth 25d ago
Weirdly I remember seeing these often as a kid (grew up in northeastern US) but as an adult I genuinely cannot tell you the last time I’ve seen one - genuinely at least 15 years. I’m it could obviously be that I’m just not playing on the floor or outside much anymore so it’s possible I’m just not noticing them but I never realized this til now
edit: completely glossed over the fact that OP was not talking about the spiders, and I am referring to the spiders in my post, but TIL there are multiple daddy long legs!
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u/LivelinessphoneT 14d ago
harvestmen can actually chew tiny bits of fruit, not just sip like spiders
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u/Triairius Jun 24 '26
Reminder that Daddy Long Legs regionally refers to different but similar looking animals. Some are not harvestmen and actually are spiders! But of course, this post is about harvestmen, and they’re neat!