Harvestman waits
A harvestman waits in a Toronto backyard.
Harmless to humans, and not spiders,
we called them daddy longlegs when I was a kid.

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Harvestman
Arachnid | Opiliones | Eupnoi | Phalangiid | Phalangium opilio









In New England we called them Daddy Long Legs too, and I thought that was a regional name – glad to hear I was wrong! I was always afraid of them when I was a kid, but now it makes me happy to see one. My mother always used to say it was bad luck to kill a spider, or any other bug for that matter. And I still believe it. Although I heard that when the Dalai Lama swats at a pesky biter, he says “Go be a Buddha!”. I like that.
Nice story about the Dalai Lama, Deb.
I can’t imagine why anyone would kill another creature for no reason, and if I believed in luck, I would hope it would cause bad luck.
They are daddy long legs here in Iowa, too!
Great photo!
Thanks, Moe. Maybe they’re called Daddy Long Legs all over the country, and we all think it’s a regional name.
“The many loves of a harvestman” – you had a collage titled so some years ago; is it still extant? Can you post?
That collage is over twenty years old, I’m not sure I have a digital image of it; I’ll check.
It was part of the art I displayed in the exhibition Super Realities – Surrealism in Detroit at the Detroit Artists Market in 1988.
True, harvestman are not spiders. Daddy long legs are really cellar spiders, or so I’ve read, but this does remind me too of what we called a Daddy Long legs.
I always thought that this spider must be the model for all the early sci-fi spiders, lots of leg and a single round body. Nice silhouette shot.
Here’s more information: http://bit.ly/9kVi06
These arachnids look like spiders, but they aren’t spiders. In fact, they are different from spiders in many ways.
Unlike spiders, harvestmen do not spin silk. And they do not have venom glands or fangs. A harvestman’s body seems to have only one large body part. That’s because a harvestman doesn’t have a tiny spider waist.
Harvestmen have tiny mouth-parts that allow them to grind up their food. They eat insects and plants. Harvestmen do not bite, so they are harmless to people.
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