a spider story

so the other day at work, a young lady approached me at info needing some help. she laughed and told me she was trying to win a bet with a friend... and needed me to help her track down some information. i smiled and agreed.

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she said that her friend insisted two things, both of which she was convinced were wrong. first, her friend said that daddy longlegs were not spiders. second, he insisted that they were very poisonous, but their mouths were too small to bite people so we never got hurt by them.

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after searching my store, we found a book on insects and spiders which confirmed the first bit (at least, as far as we found at the time). the book said that daddy longlegs are not spiders. but it had no information on whether or not they're poisonous.

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so i've spent the last 20 mins online, checking mythbuster sites. i finally got the skinny on whether or not they're spiders, and whether or not they're poisonous. if you're interested, read on. if not, have a great day.

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first, there are several little critters we humans call 'daddy longlegs'. some people apparently call mosquito hawks daddy longlegs. those, obviously, are not spiders, and are not poisonous, and should be kept around (within reason) cuz they eat mosquitos.

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another creature called a daddy longlegs is the thing i am thinking of when i say the phrase. it's a little round bodied guy with big ol long legs stickin up out of the one little body piece. i find them under logs or in dark damp places. (don't go there) these are not spiders, either. they're called opilionids, and they're harmless, eating decomposing plants mostly.

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then there is an actual spider called a daddy longlegs spider. they're found in alot of cellars in the US, and they're imported from Europe (i hear there's a pretty stiff tariff on them). these guys ARE poisonous. well, 'poisonous' is a misnomer. 'poisonous' means that the body of the creature secretes poison, so that if it's eaten, the eater has some less than pleasant after effects. when something is capable of injecting poison when it bites, it's called 'venomous'. and the daddy longlegs spider IS venomous. it's not a very strong venom. so the myth that it's 'the most poisonous spider in the world' is wrong on several counts.

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so... what i think of as a daddy longlegs is NOT a spider, and is NOT remotely venomous. however, there IS a daddy longlegs spider, and it IS venomous, and its mandibles ARE very short, too short usually to bite humans. but it's not impossible. a man put his arm in a case full of daddy longleg spiders, and after a long time, one finally bit him.

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it stung a little.