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Today on Animal Fact Files were discussing daddy long legs. Be sure to subscribe for more animal facts! Daddy long legs were a request from A Duck175. Let’s see what there is to learn!

The name “daddy long legs” could be in reference to a few different animals, so for clarity’s sake we’re discussing animals belonging to the order Opiliones. They’re also known as grand-daddy longlegs and in the scientific community they’re often called harvestmen, but I’ve always known them as daddy long legs so that’s what we’re going with today. Daddy long legs might look like spiders, but they aren’t. Daddy long legs are incapable of producing silk, and they lack fangs and venom which are all features found in spiders. They also have two or fewer eyes while most spiders have eight. Plus, spiders have to eat their food by turning it into liquid and sucking it up, but daddy long legs can chew their food. How polite!

Daddy long legs are mostly nocturnal scavengers who eat flies, roly polies, plants, fruits, and dead animals, though some species do hunt and some also come out during the day. Daddy long legs also appear to have a single, oval-shaped body while spiders distinctly have an abdomen and cephalothorax - but really it’s just that daddy long legs lack that defined “waist” found in spiders. They both have eight legs, though, and that can really throw a person off, but even their legs are different. See, in the case of many spider species, if a leg is lost to a predator the spider is able to regrow the lost limb, but daddy long legs can do no such thing. When a daddy long legs sacrifices its leg to a predator in order to make a hasty escape, that leg is gone for good. They’re still able to get by without it, though.

Some predators who may be snatching daddy’s long legs are birds, reptiles, amphibians and insects such as wasps and ants. I can’t really imagine why anything would try to eat something that has a ¼ inch (6.35mm) body length and pegs for legs, but I suppose the nearly inch-long (2.54cm) species probably offer better faire. To keep predators away daddy long legs will gather in large groups. There are a couple theories as to why this may be beneficial to them. One reason is simply safety in numbers. Groups of daddy long legs will come together and create movement as a group which might confuse predators. Plus, if the group is attacked, there’s a higher chance for an individual to escape. I’m doubting a predator would want to attack a group of daddy long legs anyway, though. Daddy long legs are able to secrete a noxious chemical to deter opposers. Oh, that reminds me! The chemical they can produce is not harmful to humans, and as we mentioned before, daddy long legs do NOT have fangs or venom - so that whole concept about daddy long legs being the most venomous spiders in the world is totally false. They’re harmless to us. In fact, in many parts of the world they’re considered a symbol of good luck and killing them brings about misfortune. Better watch where you step!

Daddy long leg reproduction habits are what set them apart from other arachnid members. While they are able to reproduce via parthenogenesis, for the most part they reproduce via direct fertilization, and, as far as we can tell, they’ve been doing this for more than 400 million years. The female may lay her eggs immediately after copulation or even months later though they’re usually laid in cooler months to hatch in the spring. Something else that sets daddy long legs apart from many arthropods are that the parents, males included in some species, take care of the eggs. It’s rare that arthropod males have any involvement in egg rearing - so it’s neat that the ones that perform the role as a daddy take on that moniker. Most daddy long legs only live about a year but some species do live longer.

There are more than 6,600 species of daddy long legs, and they live everywhere - except that one place nothing on this show seems to live. Expect the penguins. There are the penguins. Preferred environments of daddy long legs include forests, caves, grassland, mountains, wetlands, even trees and many species require humidity for survival. They’re easily affected by changes to their environment so some species, especially cave dwelling species, are listed as endangered. Of course, with so many species to account for, we don’t have population statistics for a vast majority of the Opiliones order. Still, it’s important to know that we should try not to disturb our environment as best we can since we share this planet with everything living on it big and small.

For more facts on daddy long legs, check out the links in the description. Have you ever seen one of these animals? Let us know in the comments! Give a thumbs up if you enjoyed this video, and we’ll see you next time on Animal Fact Files!