Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution => Topic started by: neilep on 22/09/2006 20:26:38
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Here in the Uk, we have seen hot days and wet days and tropical days....
This has led to a really good year for daddy-long-legs goodness !!....they are everywhere ?...can other UKers confirm this ?
We have at least a couple in each room..(I had 6 in my lounge last night ).......they're all over the place !!...really really annoying in the kitchen...!!
What's the daddy long legs state of play in YOUR part of the world too ?
<font size="1"><font color="blue"> Men are the same as women, just inside out !</font id="blue"></font id="size1">
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Yes their bloody everywhere,their attracted to light like moths and i hate the bloody things.
If you squirt them with fly spray when they drop their legs stick to the floor and they end up ripping them off before they die.
Just thought you may like to know .
Michael
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Likewise here - I suspect the worst is over, but still pretty bad.
George
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MICAHEL..LOL....I try to redirect them but end up by just bashing the buggers and squidging them in tissues....You must be getting through loads of fly-spray [:)]...They are actually completely harmless !!..well..that is unless a twenty foot wide one gets in through the window.
THANKS GEORGE !!...I just wonder if after this current rainstorm we're going to subjected to a load more..unless the temp drops I suppose.
Men are the same as women, just inside out !
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When it gets rainy we always see a ton of them seeking shelter. I just take them outside and put them in the bushes.. To us they are pretty harmless.. My Brother used to torture them when we were kids, and I hated it! I do not kill them. I pick them up and carry them out... They were the ones that scared me to death as a child.. I still don,t love them, but try not to hurt them!! We have a ton right now in California.. Northern, that is..
Karen
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DADDY LONG LEGS IS A SPIDER LOL durr everybody knows thattttt
but have u heard them? when they fly thru da window they sound like a wasp or a bee and it looks like they have got pure stingers on the back of them, u sure they dont sting... i havent touched one 2 find out..
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Yes we all Know they are spiders who were you addressing your post To???
Karen
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yes daddy long legs are harmless.
But ive heard a rumor about them. One of my friends told me that of all spiders daddy long legs have the deadlyest poison, but they are incapable of making their fangs break our skin. Is this true? Ive been avoiding them just in case some mutation made their fangs bigger...
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I would engage you in a battle of wits, but it is against my moral code to attack the unarmed.
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quote:
Originally posted by science_guy
yes daddy long legs are harmless.
But ive heard a rumor about them. One of my friends told me that of all spiders daddy long legs have the deadlyest poison, but they are incapable of making their fangs break our skin. Is this true? Ive been avoiding them just in case some mutation made their fangs bigger...
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I would engage you in a battle of wits, but it is against my moral code to attack the unarmed.
Woo !!..I've never heard about the poisonous aspect. I am sure I heard that they are completely harmless........ according to wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crane_Fly they do not bite humans at all.
It would be nice if a daddy long legs expert passes by and comments though
Men are the same as women, just inside out !
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I've heard that story for years. Here's more info on the subject.
http://spiders.ucr.edu/daddylonglegs.html
or this one...
http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/longlegs.htm
Carolyn
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Thankyou. I have been enlightened. [:)]
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I would engage you in a battle of wits, but it is against my moral code to attack the unarmed.
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I have heard they are very poisonous but they don't bite If they did it wouldn't be enough of their venom to hurt you.. I heard if in larger doses the poison is actually one of the worst around for those of a spider, they just can't hurt you thats all!! Thats not why I am afraid of them.. my brother used to pin them to a board and pull their poor little legs off while they died... Yuckkkk.... It was aweful!! so I am careful not to hurt them , kind of like my fear of chickens.. revenge of the chickens.. I am such a dope but the fact is they scare the soup out of me.. a Teranchula also.. The rest I can hold and look at and allow to crawl on me no problem, unless its dark and I can't make out an Id and it's crawling on an uncofortable place on me body , ie, between my Girls or in my shirt elsewhere, then I tend to get nervous and want swift removal to remove said little friends... without harm!!
Karen
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Sorry! But I just had to reply to this!!
Yep, last year in the winter, there were tonnes of these stuff on brick walls, floors, in houses, everywhere!! Yes... But we had much fun with them at school! Since they aren't deadly, aren't quick, can't fly..
We pick them from the wall, grab it by its body, remove its legs and/or wings, then leave em on the floor!
We were a bit mean... But there were tonnes of them! Me was sad when they left..!! Hope they come back this winter!!
Everyone calls them daddy-long legs here.. But I think they're a different species to Crane flies. Crane flies are the proper name!
Ooo.. By the way, I've seen one mating before! Their tails were joined together! One of the tail had a dent in it, the other tail was just a spike. The spike went through the dent, and they were stuck together tail to tail!! I banged on the window, so they were scared and flew away.. Their tailes were still attached though! Heehee!!
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LOL...ewe are soooooo cruel it's funny !!!
I think it may be a myth (and it may be mentioned elsewhere here ) but I thought I heard that crane flys are in fact quite poisonous but are too weak to bite through human skin !!
LOL...picking off their legs and wings !!..........I could never bring myself to do that !!!
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DOH !!..in fact Karen mentions it right above ...DOH !!!..LOL
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Yes.. Well if we pick their legs and wings off and drop em on the floor! They squirmed like wormies!!!!!
At school we all say that it's poisonous too and scare the girlies!! Heehee, the girls have no guts to grab em!!! They hate em!! HEEEHEEEE!
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Oh oops! I just read Karen's post and she'll hate me for what I've written now!! Hee hee!!!!
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What about butterflies !!! ?
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What about them?
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Do you catch them and deprive them of their wings and legs too !! ?
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Naw! They are way too fast for moi! Also dey are pretty!!
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Okay, I just need to clear something up for myself. Is the nickname(common name) for a crane fly daddylong legs in England?
Because in Canada a daddy long legs is a spider, the one that supposedly has the deadliest venom, but their fangs are to weak to pierce human skin. And a crane fly is a flying insect that looks like a giant mosquito. Is this post referring to two separate creepy bugs?
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yes in the us the spiders are daddy long legs but they have no wings. crane flies are different. but have you seen a daddy long legs spider jump?! they might as well be flying
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the one that supposedly has the deadliest venom, but their fangs are to weak to pierce human skin.
Hi Meg, that is such a myth. How has it been going for so long?
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I think it is because people tend to believe things they are told by someone they know. Like pop rocks and cola, or masturbating will make you go blind. Urban myths have a way ingraning themselves into society's "common knowledge"
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Aww don't kill the daddy long legs... they actually help keep the numbers of other more dangerous spiders down. Well, the ones we call daddy long legs in Australia are beneficial:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellar_spider
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Aww don't kill the daddy long legs... they actually help keep the numbers of other more dangerous spiders down. Well, the ones we call daddy long legs in Australia are beneficial:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellar_spider
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Okay, I just need to clear something up for myself. Is the nickname(common name) for a crane fly daddylong legs in England?
Because in Canada a daddy long legs is a spider, the one that supposedly has the deadliest venom, but their fangs are to weak to pierce human skin. And a crane fly is a flying insect that looks like a giant mosquito. Is this post referring to two separate creepy bugs?
The following, should clear up the myths and differences between what we know as and call the "spider"
My little 7-year-old daughter, Lola, shared a secret with me. "Did you know, Daddy", she said very solemnly, "Daddy Long Legs spiders are the most poisonous spiders in the world, but they can't hurt us because their fangs are too short to get through our skin". She knew this, because her 7-year-old friend India told her, and India heard it from Charlie, her 10-year-old sister - so it had to be right. But the kids were wrong in four ways, which has to be some kind of record for such a short sentence.
This myth is known around the world, not just in Australia. Most people know the Daddy Long Legs as a spider-like creature, roughly the size of a 20 cent coin, with a tiny body and long spindly legs spanning roughly the size of a 20-cent coin.
The first mistake that the kids made in their Daddy Long Legs story is that not all Daddy Long Legs are spiders - some are, and some aren't. The Class Arachnida has many Orders in it. For example, there is an Order for spiders (Order Araneae), an Order for scorpions (Order Scorpiones), and an Order for opilionids (Order Opiliones).
Now, some Daddy Long Legs are opilionids. In this case, they are also called long legged harvestmen. At a casual glance, these opilionids look a little like spiders - but they are not spiders (because they do not belong to the Order Araneae). Opilionids have two eyes (not eight like the spiders do), one body section (spiders have two), and an abdomen that is clearly separated into segments (spiders' abdomens are unsegmented). They do not make silk, and they have a very different respiratory system from spiders.
However, in the Order of spiders, there is one real spider that looks like your classic Daddy Long Legs, so it gets called Daddy Long Legs. Its official name is Pholcus phalangoides.
Inside your house a Daddy Long Legs is probably a spider. But in dark damp places like the shed, it's more likely to be a harvestman.
Second mistake, "poisonous"? Well, let me be a little pedantic (in the name of science). Strictly speaking, "poisonous" means that the creature exudes poison from its skin or shell, from where it lands on your skin, and continues its nasty work. But if you talk about a creature that injects poison through your skin into the soft layers underneath, the correct word is "venomous".
But what the heck, the English language is continually changing, and I can let the kids get away with this one.
But the third mistake, "most poisonous" or "most venomous"? Well Opilionids do not have poison glands. They definitely do not have fangs through which to squirt their non-existent poison.
There are about 20,000 different species of spider on the planet, and only about 50 are venomous. The American Black Widow and the Australian Funnel Web are heavy hitters. The spider Pholcus phlangoides (or Daddy Long Legs) is a lightweight. It took many years for anybody to bother to get the toxin.
You do this (as seen on the TV show, Mythbusters) by anaesthetising the spider with carbon dioxide, and then delicately applying tiny electric shocks to the appropriate bit of the spider. You then place a very thin glass pipe up against the fangs, and you can collect about two billionths of a litre of toxin per spider. When you do this a few hundred times, you get enough toxin to test - but it turns out to be incredibly weak, barely worthy of being counted as a poison.
The fourth mistake is about the fangs being too short to penetrate your skin. Once again, the TV show Mythbusters actually measured the fangs (on one spider, which is a small sample size, but it's a start). Their spider-wrangler, Chuck Kristensen, found that the fangs were 0.25 mm long. But skin (especially on non-contact areas) can be as thin as 0.10 mm.
A Mythbusters host, Adam Savage (terrified of spiders) bravely put his entire arm into a perspex box filled with what seemed to be hundreds of the spider version of Daddy Long Legs. After what seemed an eternity, one bit him - and he lived, complaining only of a mild sting.
So why the bad rap for the Daddy Long Legs? Spiders have some very hairy image problems, and should cut back on the web spinning, and go all out on the spin doctoring.
© Karl S. Kruszelnicki Pty Ltd 2006.
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there is no way that anybody could ever pay me enough to stick my hand in any box that had spiders of any type in it. ever. they are absolutely my worst fear. could be cuz i was bitten by a brown recluse a few years ago. that was the worst experience ever.
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In the UK the daddy long legs is a crane fly (insect) and in the US it is a Harvestman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvestman, a non poisonous spider.
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Okay, I just need to clear something up for myself. Is the nickname(common name) for a crane fly daddylong legs in England?
Because in Canada a daddy long legs is a spider, the one that supposedly has the deadliest venom, but their fangs are to weak to pierce human skin. And a crane fly is a flying insect that looks like a giant mosquito. Is this post referring to two separate creepy bugs?
We have spiders here in the UK which are called Daddy Long Legs. I think that is its real name.
However, we also call Crane Flies daddy long legs, simply because most people do not know the name of it - crane fly. Also, it looks similar, apart from the wing and worm-like body! LOL
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yeah, daddy long legs are gay, theres always a certain time of the year when there everywhere, all over out fields and stuff,,, buttt i always thought it was called daddy long legs because they have mahusivly big legs in comparison to thier bodies, and because as a child your dad is massive there for has long legs, well thats what i think anyway
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Oh oops! I just read Karen's post and she'll hate me for what I've written now!! Hee hee!!!!
I don't hate anybody in this world Seany!
I do however fear those daddy long leg spiders, not crane flys.. LOL I was posting on spiders sorry if I am always off topic!
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daddy long legs are cute! lol
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Daddy long legs, or Harvestmen, are actually related to spiders inasmuch as both spiders and harvestmen are groups of Arachnids. However, spiders (Araneae) and Harvestmen (Opiliones) are distinct and separate groups. The common name "Crane Fly" could and often is, be applied to several families of long-antenna-ed flies but it is generally understood to refer to members of the family Tipulidae. The larvae (maggots) of these guys, btw, are pretty important consumers of of fallen leaves in water of small streams. They are called Leatherjackets after their brown, tough, and flexible cuticle.
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daddy long legs are cute! lol
I agree. But I still enjoy torturing them. [;)]
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or masturbating will make you go blind.
Wait, is that true? Because I kept doing it and my right eye's sight is indeed getting more and more blurry. Does it really have that effect?
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Does it really have that effect?
If you poke yourself in the eye ;)
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I am asking a serious question here...
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There have been more lawns and golf courses.The pest species (Tipulidae has only a few)Tipula paludosa is more common.It bores under sod.
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Oh I should add that even after I clean the tank of the hair algae and brown algae these things still remain. I tried rubbing them off the leaves but I feel that there should be a better way.
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Try using a light film of soap through a spray bottle. These leatherjackets are hard to stop.Maybe buy another aquarium.
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What ferts are you using and is there a plant specific substrate? Maybe an iron deficiency if getting holes in leaves.
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I read an old reference on their pest control.Crane-flies like damp grass matts;so by flooding it or even the opposite (ie add phosphate fertilizer and Calcium carbonate),can get rid of flies. Remember they are not mosquitoes who like water pools and dry surfaces.Crane-flies like just a little moisture, not a lot and not too little.