VERY IMPORTANT SPIDER BUSINESS
so I'm remembering the regional dialect meme from a while back and this one question is bugging me:
What do you call the kind of spider that has an oval-shaped body and extremely long legs?
Here's the thing: I remember a couple of people saying "a daddy long-legs is not a spider." I think it was mentioned that they only have six legs? This confused the heck out of me because I could have sworn that these critters had eight legs and were, in fact, spiders. I only thought of this because I happened to find one in the apartment today. And I counted its legs.
It had seven.
Which means either it was a mutant with an extra leg or (more likely) what I've been calling a daddy long-legs is indeed a spider with eight legs and this one had an accident.
Here's what I learned from Wikipedia. These three critters can all be called "daddy long-legs":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellar_spider (what I'm used to seeing)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crane_fly (clearly that's a skeeter eater)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvestman (wtf is this?)
SO THAT SAID, PLS WEIGH IN ON THIS VERY IMPORTANT POLL.
Poll HEY DADDY
ETA: Whoa wait, Harvestmen are arachnids too? WTF is the 6 legged analog people are seeing?? Is losing legs just really common to this kind of spider?
What do you call the kind of spider that has an oval-shaped body and extremely long legs?
Here's the thing: I remember a couple of people saying "a daddy long-legs is not a spider." I think it was mentioned that they only have six legs? This confused the heck out of me because I could have sworn that these critters had eight legs and were, in fact, spiders. I only thought of this because I happened to find one in the apartment today. And I counted its legs.
It had seven.
Which means either it was a mutant with an extra leg or (more likely) what I've been calling a daddy long-legs is indeed a spider with eight legs and this one had an accident.
Here's what I learned from Wikipedia. These three critters can all be called "daddy long-legs":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellar_spider (what I'm used to seeing)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crane_fly (clearly that's a skeeter eater)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvestman (wtf is this?)
SO THAT SAID, PLS WEIGH IN ON THIS VERY IMPORTANT POLL.
Poll HEY DADDY
ETA: Whoa wait, Harvestmen are arachnids too? WTF is the 6 legged analog people are seeing?? Is losing legs just really common to this kind of spider?