Daddy Long Legs Spider Facts

Daddy long legs spiders are the common house spiders, that can be easily distinguished by their exceptionally long legs, as compared to the body size. They got the name daddy long legs, due to their resemblance to the daddy long legs or crane flies. They are also known as vibrating spider, house spider, cellar spider or daddy long-legger. In scientific terms, they are called, Pholcus phalangioides and belong to the family of Pholcidae.

In addition to crane flies, another species that is often referred as daddy long legs is the long-legged harvestmen. Harvestmen are arachnids, and they can be distinguished from the daddy long legs spider by the structure of their body. They have only one body section, i.e. their abdomen and cepahothorax are fused together to form one structure, while both the head or thorax region and the abdomen are two distinct parts in these spiders.

Physical Appearance
Like other spiders, the body of the daddy long legs spiders can be divided into two parts, i.e., cephalothorax and abdomen. The main body is usually 2 to 10 mm long, while the legs can be up to 50 mm in length. In total, there are eight legs, that remain attached to the cephalothorax region. Generally, they have eight eyes; six eyes are arranged in two lateral groups of three closely clustered eyes, while the rest of the two are very small median eyes. Some species of daddy long legs spiders however, contain only six eyes, which are arranged in two groups of three clustered eyes, with no median eyes. The abdomen is cylindrical and spiders are either gray in color, or can be found with brown stripes or chevron marking on the ventral side of their body.

Habitat
They can be found throughout the world in dark and damp places. They can be easily found to hang inverted from their webs, in places like, caves, rocks, buildings and cellars. Such areas are usually not disturbed, and hence, ideal for these spiders to weave or make their webs. However, they can also survive in dry and warm places like deserts.

Diet
They consume almost every insects like, mosquitoes, flies, beetles and even other spiders. They have venom glands as well as fangs, and they use their venom to kill and digest their prey. They usually invade the webs of other spider species like, Tegenaria, redback spiders and wolf spiders to eat the trapped prey, or the host itself. They can also eat other daddy long legs spiders.

In many instances, they vibrate the webs of other spiders. This is a trick employed by these spiders to draw the host of the web closer, so that it can attack and kill the host. They usually throw stiff and rigid web material on its prey to restrict its movements, and then envelops it completely with silk or web. Subsequently, they bite the softer part of the body of the prey to inject digestive juices into it. The prey is either consumed immediately or a part of it is left behind or stored for later.

Life Cycle
They reach the age of reproduction in one year. The male lives for one year and dies after copulating, while the female lives for about 3 years. During copulation, the male deposits its palps, containing the sperms, in the female vulva. The fertilized eggs are held together with a few strand of silk, and the female carries the agglutinated mass of eggs between her jaw, or the pair of fang like appendages, which are called chelicerae. It takes about 2 to 30 week for hatching, and the young spiderlings are also carried by their mothers in between her jaw. The spiderlings then go through a series of molts, where they shed their skin. After several molting, they finally reach adulthood, usually in summer.

They are known to be one of the most poisonous or venomous spiders of the world. However, their poison has not been tested on humans. Besides, their fangs are too small to bite or puncture the human skin, for which they are not considered dangerous for humans. Another interesting fact about this spider is that, it vibrates itself and become blurred, whenever it feels threatened. This is the reason why it is termed as vibrating spider.