The brick façade next to our front door is a favorite hangout for spiders and moths. During the late summer and fall months especially, it’s common to find two or three different kinds of moths resting there with their wings spread out flat against the brickwork — probably attracted to the porch light overnight. One particular type of eight-legged visitor can often be found clinging to the bricks as well. This visitor has an oval-shaped, gray-brown body that looks too small for the span of its super long black legs. This is the harvestman, and it’s actually not a spider at all.

You might know them as harvestmen, daddy long-legs, or shepherd spiders. They are arachnids but are not closely related to spiders. Unlike true spiders, which have a distinct cephalothorax and abdomen, the harvestman appears to have only one fused body part to which the legs are attached. While spiders have multiple pairs of eyes, the harvestman has only two eyes. There are over 6,000 known species of harvestmen worldwide, although it is thought by many experts that the number may be as high as 10,000 with all the species that are yet to be discovered. Washington state has over 50 known harvestman species, with two new local species only recently discovered.

Myth: A “daddy-longlegs” is a kind of spider

Two of Washington’s strangest arachnids

Harvestmen get their name from the fact that they appear in late summer and early fall around harvest time. They are also known as shepherd spiders because the males guard the females while she is laying her eggs. Some people also thought the harvestman’s long legs resembled the stilts that shepherds used to stand on while watching their flocks. The name of the family of harvestmen, Opiliones, means “shepherd.” You might hear the common name “daddy long-legs” also used for the cellar spider or crane fly.

Myth: Daddy-longlegs would be deadly but…

Harvestmen have no venom glands and they don’t spin silk. They do not live in webs or nests. Scientists have recently discovered that pedipalps (appendages near the mouth) of some species of harvestmen secrete a sticky substance that helps them capture live prey.

Harvestmen Use Glue to Capture Prey

Using mouth parts called chelicerae, which are similar to tiny claws, they tear off chunks of prey to eat. Some harvestmen are omnivorous, eating small insects, plants, and fungi, while others are scavengers that consume dead animals or bird droppings and other fecal material. They are very fastidious, drawing their legs through their mouth parts to clean them after eating. They are nocturnal hunters and use camouflage to stay concealed during the day. You might find them under leaf litter in your garden, or hiding in plain sight on a brick wall.

Harvestmen are preyed upon by some mammals and amphibians as well as spiders. They use smelly chemicals secreted from their legs to ward off predators, as well as bobbing motions to confuse predators when they attack. Like lizards shedding a tail, the harvestman can even shed a leg that wiggles and distracts predators as the harvestman escapes. The leg does not regrow, and it’s common to find harvestmen with a missing appendage or two. They can even feign death to avoid being eaten.

If you ever find what looks like a patch of brown hair on a rock or tree trunk, you might be looking at the combined legs of hundreds of harvestmen huddled together. This behavior may be used to regulate body temperature, or it could be another way to fend off predators.

For more on the topic, here’s a couple of videos:

from Burke Museum

from Animal Fact Files

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Thanks so much for your interest and your support.