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Daddy Long Legs
A public service announcement.|
This is not a spider.
Repeat. This is not a spider. It is a daddy Long Legs (Opiliones). If you live on the West Bank of America you probably have a few bugs in your house (rent free) that you call a Daddy Long Legs but that is a spider (Araneomorphae Pholcidae to be exact) not a true Daddy Long Legs. They are both Arachnids. But are about as different as a grasshopper and a cricket or if you prefer Pat Robertson (Homo Spuma) and humans (Homo Sapien). | 
| Fun fact: If you pull the legs of a Daddy Long Legs they will twitch for up to an hour. Share this with your local PETA representative. |
Fun fact: If you agitate one, maybe by pulling off its legs, it starts to stink. |
So now you are asking "What is this smart-ass getting at?"
I am glad you asked, not because it confirms my powers of mind reading, but because it gives me a chance to sound like a know it all. |
| Looking at them you can see the difference. Get right in their face and study them. Ok so you don't want to get right in their face. They might bite. So I have spare every expense to asciify the differences for you. |
Fun Fact: Daddy Long Legs don't make silk. None. No webs. If you find a Daddy long legs in a web it has probably been partially digested by the spider that lives there. |
| A spider has a body like an insect with a head, abdomen, and 8 count them (I know you won't) eyes spaced in odd places on its head. Spiders are poisonous (in case you didn't know). | A Daddy Long Legs has nothing so fancy. A body with head merged and only two eyes just like yours, only smaller and not nearly as good. Ok so they aren't much like yours since they aren't even close mechanically and they are on the side of the head. |
___
/ \ .--. i i i i <-- Eight eyes
| >| { i i i i
\___/ `--'
Spider (Order = Araneae)
:F_P:
___
/ \ <----------,
| x x | Budget restrictions
\ ^ / allow us to only use
`w' this skull to show
poisonous.
| ___
/ \-.
| { i i <-- Two eyes
\___/-'
Daddy Long Legs
(Order = Opiliones)
:F_P:
{@ <- Potted flower used to show
\|/ non-poisonous because
_|_ we spent the rest of the
\_/ money on the skull.
|
| In closing I hope you will never confuse the two again. Because knowing the difference between them can save your life. The spider is poisonous and can kill you. Well not really. I mean they could kill you, but you would have to have a few hundred of them blocking your air path or you would have to choke on a few dozen of them. Maybe the site of a few thousand would cause a heart attack. But the spider can't kill you with poison, and the Opiliones is even more harmless unless you are its favorite food (dead bugs), but at least you know the difference now. |
:F_P:########################
Opiliones