Harvestman (Daddy Long-Legs)

Order Opiliones — the harvestmen, also called daddy long-legs (the true ones, not the cellar spiders or crane flies often given the same nickname) — contains over 6,500 species worldwide. The order is one of the oldest arachnid lineages, with confirmed fossils dating to the early Devonian (~410 million years ago). Anatomically, harvestmen are distinguished from spiders (Araneae) by several features: the body is a single fused unit with no waist between cephalothorax and abdomen (spiders have an obvious narrow pedicel separating the two); they have no silk glands (no web building, no draglines); they have no venom glands and only weak chelicerae (no fangs, no envenomation); and they can eat solid food in chunks (most spiders must liquefy prey externally with digestive enzymes first). Harvestmen typically have just one pair of eyes mounted on a turret-like dorsal projection (spiders usually have eight). They eat insects, dead arthropods, fungi, plant fluids, and decaying matter — making them important ecological scavengers and predators of soft-bodied pest insects (aphids, mites, small caterpillars). The species is famous for autotomy: when grabbed by a leg, the harvestman can voluntarily detach the leg at a precise breakage plane, escape, and survive permanently on the remaining seven legs. The detached leg often continues to twitch for several minutes — distracting the predator while the harvestman walks away.