How do granddaddy long legs eat

These arachnids have developed some rather unique methods of defense from predators. First, they have a set of stink glands that they deploy to help ward off predators.

They also have been known to curl up and play dead when disturbed. The most unique defense mechanism, however, is their ability to shed their legs when grabbed also known as autotomy. Unfortunately, once they shed an appendage they are unable to grow it back. They prefer dark, moist environments and are often found in crawl spaces, basements, and garages.

The best way to get rid of a granddaddy long leg is to sweep or vacuum it up. Because what attracts granddaddy long legs are smaller pests they can prey on, seeing a large number of them in your home can indicate another pest control issue.

If you suspect you have a pest problem, contact a professional pest control company who can help with pest and spider identification and the best course of treatment and future prevention. They have eight eyes and produce silk. The harvestman eats decomposing animals and plants. According to Backyardnature. It doesn't have fangs or venom glands.

The daddy longlegs spider has been known to raid webs in search of eggs, captured prey and even other spiders to eat. You'll often hear people say that the daddy longlegs spider's venom is deadly to humans but that it can't bite people because its fangs are too short. Of course we all just knew they were man-eating spiders and we'd be bitten. Invariably though, the poor "spider" would lose a leg or two, fall quite short, and we'd race off to safety.

Since then I've come to quite like daddy long legs and the members of their family, mostly because I think they get a pretty bad rap. Daddy long legs are arthropods which means "joint foot" , but they are not spiders.

Even though superficially they look like spiders, and move like spiders, they aren't. Their family tree gets moved around a lot, because no one is quite sure where they belong, but most think they're more closely related to mites or scorpions sans sting or venom.

Sometimes they are called granddaddy long-legs, harvest spiders, or harvestmen. Daddy long-legs are found on every continent except Antarctica, and it's thought that there are nearly 6, species, 46 families, and 4 suborders world wide!

That's a lot of species for a group that is commonly misidentified. FACT: Daddy long legs are not spiders, they lack the ability to spin silk spinnerets and they do not have the body shape of spiders. If you remember from previous posts, spiders have two body parts, a head and a cephalothorax fused abdomen and middle.

Daddy long-legs have one oval shaped fused body-head-abdomen, also called a cephalothrox. They do have eight legs, like spiders do, but these legs are a bit different too. In the Eastern harvestman their second pair of legs are longest, and they are specialized for smell-touching.

Most species have a stinky-gland at the base of this second set of legs for driving off potential predators the awesome "sciency" name for this stinky gland is "ozopore" Almost all species of daddy long legs can "drop" a leg, much like a lizard losing its tail, it a form of self-amputation.

While a great technique for predators that are easily distracted by the leg s , which continues to twitch, it's not so great for the daddy long-legs because he can't ever grow them back. This is why you shouldn't pick them up by the legs, you can end up permanently amputating their appendages I'm feeling a bit of childhood guilt here.

Another feature that distinguishes daddy long-legs from spiders is the fact that they have a single pair of eyes that are located on top of a stalk near the middle of their head region.