Daddy longlegs are the most venomous spiders in the world, but their fangs are too short to bite you. Is this true?
The answer is no, but we're going to have to get a few things straight.
Rick Vetter, a retired research associate of entomology at the University of California, Riverside, asked, "First, what are you calling a daddy longlegs?" Vetter has been debunking this myth for a long time.
Is humans venomous?
The problem is that the term "daddy longlegs" is used to refer to at least three different animals, only one of which is a true spider.
The animal is a cellar spider. Like other spiders, it has two body segments, eight eyes and fangs.
There are harvestmen, which are arachnids. These animals have a single body segment and only two eyes, and they don't have fangs or venom glands.
Vetter told Live Science that the harvestmen have little mouth parts. They look like little pinchers. They're mostly used for tearing apart animals.
The harvestmen have one body segment and two eyes. EyeEm is credited with the image
There are crane flies in the family. These are insects, not arachnids, and their long bodies and wings make them look like mosquitoes. Unlike mosquitoes, they can't bite you. Many crane fly have no mouths at all. They only have a few days to mate and lay eggs.
Daddy longlegs aren't just one thing. What about their venom? The legend that Crane flies have none is false. Harvestmen have poison. Poison works either through ingestion or through contact with the skin. When harvestmen are disturbed, they either spray or coat themselves in a dark, foul smelling chemical mixture designed to ward off parasites. It's not the world's most toxic poison because it can kill spiders and insects.
Cranefly can't bite because they don't have mouth parts. The image is courtesy of kerkla.
The only true spiders of the bunch are the cellar spiders. These can bite humans. The brown recluse is notorious for its potentially fatal bite to humans, and their fangs are similar to that. That's where the similarities end.
There is no evidence that pholcid spiders cause a toxic effect in humans. One scientist did some work on that, and he had a little black mark for a day or two, but he said it was not that big of a deal. Not the most toxic spider in the world.
Venom analysis has confirmed that. A 2004 "Mythbusters" episode that was later documented in a study reported that a researcher injected mice with venom from cellar spiders or black widow spiders. The venom of the black-dow was more powerful.
The legs of a spider. t bradford's image was used.
Why has the legend persisted all these years if it is false?
"That's a really good question, and I really don't have an answer for it," Vetter said. It's something that someone said once and there wasn't enough knowledge to refute it. It goes on and on. People like scary stories.
Live Science published the original article.
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