Five Cool Facts About Daddy Long Legs

Daddy long legs are one of the most common types of spiders to see around the home. Their long, slender legs and tiny bodies make them less intimidating than other spiders. Unless you are seeing multiple ones per week, there's usually no need to call a pest control service, although homes do occasionally become over-ridden with daddy long legs. 

In spite of these spiders' popularity, a lot of people do not know too much about them. Knowledge is power, so keep reading to learn five cool facts about daddy long legs spiders.

1. They're technically not spiders.

Daddy long legs do belong to the arachnid family, as do spiders. They have eight legs like a spider does, and they do have an exoskeleton, which is a characteristic of all arachnids. However, daddy long legs lack some of the other traits that would be necessary for them to be considered spiders. They do not have multiple pairs of eyes—they only have one. They also do not produce silk to spin webs, which all spiders do. If you look closely at their bodies, you will notice that there are no segments. Daddy long legs have just one body segment, whereas spiders have two.

Daddy long legs have come to be known colloquially as spiders because they resemble spiders in appearance and behavior. And they are treated similarly to spiders by exterminators. The distinction really only matters from a scientific perspective.

2. They live everywhere.

Daddy long legs are a very common problem in the Midwest and Northeast United States because they thrive during the humid summers that these regions have. However, they are very versatile, adaptive creatures, and as such, you can find them almost anywhere, from the forest to caves. They are less common in colder environments, but they are still around, albeit more hidden beneath leaf litter and the like. There are actually multiple species of daddy long legs, and each one has its own regional and environmental preferences.

3. They are not very active.

Some spiders can travel for miles looking for a new place to call home or partners to breed with. Daddy long legs are different—perhaps because they're not actually spiders. They tend to spend their whole lives within a few hundred feet of where they hatch. So, if you have a daddy long legs nest in your home, you can bet those all of those spiders will try to stick around. Similarly, if you find a daddy long legs in your home, you can be confident that the nest is somewhere close by—probably outside in a garden bed or wooded area.

4. They make chemicals to repel predators.

Daddy long legs have a lot of potential predators due to their small size. Lizards and frogs especially would love to feed on them—if it were not for the daddy long legs' unique protective mechanism. They release an odorous chemical that makes them seem unappealing to predators. The predator may begin chasing the bug when they see it, but once they smell the odor, they give up and turn away.

5. They won't poison you.

There's a myth that daddy long legs spiders are really, really poisonous and deadly, but that nobody ever dies from their poison because the spiders don't bite. As it turns out, this myth is not true at all. Daddy long legs do only bite on a rare occasion, but if you are bitten, there is no need to worry. They are not venomous, and the worst you'll experience is some minor soreness and itching from the bite.

If you'd like to learn more about spider control, contact a pest control service or go to this site.