Fake news! The venom turns out to be not especially potent even to the arthropods that are a cellar spider’s usual prey. ![]() The worst slander perpetrated against Pholcus phalangioides is that these spiders are highly venomous, and that only the shortness of their fangs prevent them from being dangerous to humans. But the body segments on a harvestman are merged into a single, nearly round object, while a true cellar spider has a more elongated body with a distinct division between the abdomen and the forward sections. “Daddy longlegs” is also a name applied to the Opiliones, a superficially similar group that is only distantly related to the cellar spider.Īlso called harvestmen, Opiliones share the delicate legs of Pholcus. ![]() Pholcus is sometimes referred to with the common name “daddy longlegs,” which highlights why serious students of spiders avoid common names altogether in favor of more precise, if sometimes awkward, scientific names. The cellar spider’s habits don’t help much: As their common name suggests, they’re animals of dark, damp places, building their untidy webs in corners or between rafters in cellars, attics, or closets. Many people are misguided enough to find spiders of any sort to be repulsive, and the exaggerated anatomy of a cellar spider seems to make this species especially reviled. But the salient trait of this species is a set of outrageously long, thin legs: On a large female, the span of those threadlike limbs may approach three inches. ![]() With a body length ranging up to nearly half an inch, they’re good-size spiders to start with. These things are, let’s admit, a bit creepy both in appearance and in habits.
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