![]() ![]() Harvestmen are omnivorous, and thrive on decaying organic matter of every variety. They soon darken and, as they grow, shed their skins like many insects do. In spring the newly-hatched young are white miniature editions of the adults. This is repeated until she becomes merely an empty shell. While the smaller male drives away rivals, the female lays a few eggs at a time in the soil, or in or under rotten wood. We have 60 or more species in North America and the adults of all but one of these die with the coming of winter. I know from watching their evasive actions they can detect me moving from 6 feet away.Ībout 1,900 species of harvestmen are distributed over the world in forests, fields and other land habitats. On top of the head is a black “turret”, a knob with a tiny eye on each side. They do not spin webs, or use silk or build nests. Instead, the head, thorax and abdomen are grown together into a compact, oblong body. The red blobs are parasitic mites. Unlike the spiders (order Araneae), the abdomen of the harvestman is divided into segments, but it has no “waist”. ![]() The turret-like knob on top has a primitive, simple eye on either side. The Pholcidae are venomous, the harvestmen are not. There are, indeed, true spiders (order Araneae) that are called “daddy longlegs”, but those are spiders of the family Pholcidae, aka cellar spiders or vibrating spiders. When I was a child, we called these creatures “daddy longlegs spiders.” But they are not spiders at all – they inhabit their own order, the Opiliones. ![]()
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