I have a friendly bunch of spiders...yes?When my hubby found these guys, it got me wondering about Daddy Long Legs. First off I have to tell you that these guys are not actually spiders. They are in the arachnid family, but are only related to spiders like scorpions and ticks are. (I had no idea!)
In investigating why Daddy Long legs aggregate in large numbers...the answer was...no one knows why for sure. None of the reasons listed were for mating, which was what I thought when I saw this outside my front door. (There are 5 pictured, 2 skeedaddled while I went to get the camera)
There are over 7,000 kinds of Daddy long legs around the world!
I don't usually shoo these guys away from the door, because they don't make messy webs. I did find out, that in fact they don't make webs at all. The Daddys will eat almost anything, but prefer animal matter. Some species prey on small insects, snails, and worms.
Daddy Long Legs 'legs' can twitch for up to an hour after becoming detached. There are pacemakers in the ends of their legs. The twitching is used as a get away tactic, keeping the predator busy, while the Daddy hopefully gets away. (I won't be doing any field testing of my own)
Lastly, I found out that they stink when you smell them up close. Really? (I think I'll just take the experts word on that as well)
