:), Welcome back, Pablo! Some daddy long legs love to hang out in large clumps. I think that tomorrow's wonder of the day is going to be about SIR VALENTINE or how Valentine's Day started. Why do people use a heart to celebrate Valentine's Day? I am Gabrielle, and I love to learn with you every day. Thanks for sharing your thoughts about the video and what you think tomorrow's Wonder might be about. In addition, some spiders have long legs, though they aren't as long or as thin as those of a typical harvestman. Or perhaps they are trying to bolster their chemical defenses.”. They don’t go anywhere,” Clouse says. Even though spiders give some of us the creepy crawly feeling, we are glad we learned about different types of spiders today! Huntsman spiders, jumping spiders, and spiders of the Tegenaria species, can also fall prey to daddy long-legs spiders. Harvestmen are quickly separated from their legs, which seem designed to fall off. That's part of their name- "longlegs"! I HATE spiders!!! We think it sounds very fun! Brits don't call them "daddy longlegs" for nothing. They are FUN to WONDER about! In fact, daddy longlegs are more like scorpions than spiders. We are thrilled to hear that you are WONDERing with us today... and you learned the truth about daddy longlegs, too! We used to have "Wacky Wednesday" where we compared and contrasted 2 crazy unlike things...but now we might change our journal focus to "Wonder Wednesdays"! We're so happy you visited us again, Wonder Friend! We think tomorrow's Wonder will be: Valentine's Day, hearts, circulatory system, and cupid. https://www.wonderopolis.org/wonder/why-do-spiders-spin-webs/. I hate spiders! “It’s hard to tell if they caught it or if they just ran across it. :-), What a GREAT comment, Adam! I really liked the music. “She probably opens the package up and takes the sperm inside; it’s kept alive [until] the sperm goes into her reproductive tract somewhere, where it meets the eggs and fertilizes.” Then, the female uses a telescoped ovipositor longer than her body to lay the eggs deep in the dirt. We like your Valentine's Day guess... we hope you have a very WONDERful Valentine's Day! :), Thanks for WONDERing with us today, Mrs. Smith's Class! Harvestmen have only one fused body part (Photo: Rob Swatski, Flicker Sharing). :), Hi Amma! It was cool. Photo by JovenGandalf via Wikimedia Commons. “But in general, when something with an exoskeleton gets injured, they can’t do very much until the next molt happens.” And daddy longlegs, once they’re fully grown, don’t molt anymore. Thanks for sharing your comment with us today! One time I was at a cottage and in the bathroom there was about 10 to 12 daddy long legs. Even here in the U.S. we have some tiny ones in the leaf litter that the average person never sees.”. -- Suchitra Dear Wonderopolis, I am not a big fan of daddy long legs. Different regions of the world have their own particular daddy longlegs, and some of the most common ones are small and out of sight in the leaf litter on the forest floor. What will it be called? Spiders have two segments to their bodies, and most eat only insects and other spiders. We appreciate your comment and we hope to Wonder with you again soon! :-), We love your enthusiasm, Andrew! Wow! 😬, We certainly will keep WONDERing, hunter! We really appreciate hearing how much you enjoy learning with us each day! For a challenge, turn your essay into a presentation that includes pictures and graphics to illustrate your points. As a group, craneflies are unmistakeable, although telling the different species apart can be very difficult and often requires a microscope. Did you find any daddy longlegs nearby? Find one or two non-squeamish friends or family member to help you check out one or more of the following activities: Have you seen Wonder 2026: How Did Spiders Help the Allies Win World War II? (biology) taxonomic group whose members can interbreed, slang term used for insects or other creatures that crawl and make people feel fear and disgust, pass into or through, often by overcoming resistance, an arthropod of the class Arachnida, such as a spider or scorpion, having your attention fixated as though by a spell, causing an unpleasant feeling of fear or unease, any of an order (Opiliones) of arachnids that have slender usually long legs and that resemble spiders but have an oval body lacking a constriction —called also harvestman. We're not sure exactly what the other bug was, but we bet it was glad about the way things turned out at the end of the video! We are so glad you enjoyed our bug Wonder-- daddy longlegs are very cool! We appreciate your comment... perhaps you have another topic that you'll hop over to, one that will make you smile?! Thanks bunches for such a cool website that encourages wondering, writing, and "wow"ness! THIS WAS SO SCARY FOR ME TO READ BECAUSE SPIDERS ARE GROSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Cool wonder! We look forward to WONDERing with you tomorrow, too! Keep WONDERing with us! Thank you! Today's Wonder video features the click beetle and the daddy longlegs... and it looks like the daddy longlegs is borrowing some silk from the click beetle! You can also check bushes and trees. :D. I got to read but sadly the video is blocked at our school. :), Dear Wonderopolis, Their long legs explain the “ longlegs " part of their nickname, although no one knows for sure where the “ daddy " part of the nickname came from. Thanks for stopping by! It's great that you're here today, we enjoyed your comment! They get right by them all, right next to the females and next thing you know, she’s releasing eggs, he’s releasing sperm and the deed is done.”, In daddy longlegs, regular males are called alpha males, while the males that look like females are called beta males. We know that insects can be creepy crawly at times, but we're so happy that you're WONDERing with us today! Thank You. Please share what you find out with us, so that we learn something new too! Daddy longlegs are types of spiders that have long legs. 15. Hi, I'm from Mrs. Hess' class and I thought that video was very interesting. Tom Cruise sends same cake to all his A-list friends. On the other, you sometimes find yourself looking up arachnids right before bedtime, as I did earlier this month. Daddy longlegs really freak me out because of their legs. :-), We are SUPER happy to hear that you guys learned a lot by exploring today's Wonder, Ms. Turney’s Class! “We know from a very well preserved fossil of a daddy longlegs from Scotland that they are at least 400 million years old,” Clouse says. “In the field, where these big ones are, the frustration of my colleagues is that they always seem to come upon them already eating something!” Clouse says. :), It's okay, some of our Wonder Friends aren't big fans of crawling critters either, EE! If you guys learn some cool new facts through your own WONDERing, please share what you find out with your friends in Wonderopolis...we love to learn, too! I love this story. Scientists are uncertain about where the name for these different type of insects actually came from! :) ;). We hope you'll research more information about beetles, like we saw in the Wonder video today! Instead of fangs, daddy long legs have claws around their mouths (called chelicerae) for grasping prey. :), Hey there, Wonder Friends in Mrs. Rosario's Class! YOU ROCK! “Their most obvious feature to avoid predation is to produce chemical excretions from glands on their bodies, which have been observed to repulse predators,” Clouse says. We did, too! Their long legs explain the “longlegs" part of their nickname, although no one knows for sure where the “daddy" part of the nickname came from. Thank you for today's wonder! Thank you for including us! Thanks for sharing your comment and using your awesome imagination! In fact, we have never heard or used this term before. Sometimes we borrow them from places like YouTube and Vimeo, and sometimes we make our own videos. We've got more than 800 Wonders to share! 1 WHY ARE THEY CALLED DADDY LONGLEGS? Curiously, scientists point out that there are some species of harvestmen that have short legs! Today's wonder was cool. It's time to go on a daddy longlegs hunt. Here’s the bottom line: They don’t have fangs, they don’t have big strong pincers. Because of their trademark long legs, they may have difficulty walking. Hi I'm back! This was an amazing experience for us and we now know a lot about "daddy longlegs". Harvestmen) dangerous? “They are generally very, very bad at getting around, so they tend to have lots of species, because the minute a river flows between two different populations or a mountain rises and cuts one population off from another population, they split into two new species.” For example, the closest relatives to the arachnids he’s studying in South Carolina live in West Africa, which were all one species before the continents split and the Atlantic Ocean sprang up between them. How do you get the videos? on the ground and she picked it up with a stick and we looked at it, and it was white and swirly. It sounds like that cottage was home to quite a few daddy longlegs! Thanks. (-: I find this article very fascinating, I never knew a daddy long leg wasn't a spider. We think you're awesome and we're glad you're WONDERing with us! Before you set out on your backyard adventure, you may want to have a few supplies with you. Thus, that old myth about daddy longlegs being the most venomous creature on Earth is just that: a myth. Today was our favorite so far! :), We sure are glad you shared your comment, Reagan! Check out this Wonder from the past: We think your predictions about tomorrow's Wonder are AWESOME! 2014–2021 © National Center for Families Learning, http://wonderopolis.org/wonder/why-are-they-called-daddy-longlegs, © National Center for Families Learning (NCFL), i have always played with daddy longlegs and the reson there called daddy longlegs is because there lages are so long and thay are dads, I love spiders so much i once asked my mom to get me one and she did i still have to this day, I love this website so much it is great!! Granddaddy long legs do not produce silk so they can’t make webs. Thank you, Today our class was excited to learn that Daddy LongLegs are actually arachnids. And if a female has the gene to produce lots of sneaky males, she has an advantage when there aren’t a lot of sneaky males. You guys are awesome!!!!!!! Keep up the WONDERing, Donna! You really did a great job of sharing what you learned today! :), We are proud of you for WONDERing with us today, Ashley! You did a SUPER job of summarizing the new facts you learned, and it sounds like you've been very busy comparing and contrasting spiders and harvestmen. Wow. Hey there people at Wonderopolis. We are glad you enjoyed learning about daddy longlegs and how they live. Dear wonderopolis Daddy long legs have been shown to prey and eat redback spiders. :'D. How does a daddy long legs unattach its legs? WONDERing leads to LEARNING and LEARNING makes us SMART! :), Creepy crawly insects make us shiver sometimes, too, Wonder Friend Jusin! :), Wonder #282 is right up your alley, Meadoe! :-), It's SUPER to hear from you today, Mr. Swick’s Class! Daddy longlegs, (order Opiliones), also spelled daddy-longlegs or daddy long legs, also called harvestman, any of more than 6,000 species of arachnids (class Arachnida) that are known for their extremely long and thin legs and for their compact bodies. Wonder #32 - What Are Wisdom Teeth? “They’re usually found in humid areas, such as under rocks, in leaf litter, and inside caves,” Clouse says. https://www.wonderopolis.org/wonder/why-do-spiders-spin-webs/ :), Thanks for WONDERing with us, Cagla! That is a very common conversation about daddy longlegs. Wonder #242 - How Does 3D Work? Check out National Geographic Kids', Do you have any daddy longlegs where you live? :) Pachyloidellus goliath, native to Argentina. I didn't know that big daddy longlegs weren't spiders. Harvestmen also don’t produce silk and don’t have venom. During the day many of them hide in crevasses, and when disturbed they usually curl up and remain motionless for several minutes.” Yes, they play dead—which works extraordinarily well for a couple of reasons. Thoughts: We wonder if scientists will ever learn why they're called daddy longlegs. Dear Wonderopolis, Thanks for joining us today! Here are a few fascinating facts he told us about daddy longlegs—which I now find pretty cool. We are proud of you for WONDERing with us, even though you don't love spiders. :), NICE WORK, Wonder Friend Daniel! You’ll often see the big, long legged ones with six legs or seven legs. It sounds like you are having a great time WONDERing today! That was so cool that you got to see that fight and thanks for helping me with my homework by telling me all of that information. I have a few questions for you. Thanks for WONDERing with us today! It sounds like your family's hiking trip was a TON of fun, and how cool that you saw a daddy longlegs up close! Predictions: Have you ever celebrated Valentine's Day? We thought the music was awesome, too! Have a stellar day! It was cool! "It probably keeps fungus and stuff off. Daddy-long-legs spiders are easily recognised by their extremely long, skinny legs and small body. It fluctuates back and forth around a certain percentage.”, Regardless of whether a male is an alpha or a beta, it will still have the same objective, Clouse says: “They seem to have all the urges. I felt like the spider was actually in here. Even if you call a harvestman a daddy longlegs, there’s no proof that its venom is especially toxic to humans." According to Clouse, the rumor might have gotten started during “the retelling by an American tabloid of a study in Australia on the venom of a daddy longlegs there; the problem is that in Australia, ‘daddy longlegs’ refers to a type of spider,” also known as the cellar spider. Thanks for your patience. :-), We love hearing your thoughts, connections and predictions, Mrs. Hess’ Class! We wonder if the wonder is going to be about love. :o, Dear Wonderopolis, :) Thanks! There might be as many as 10,000 species of daddy longlegs, with 6000 to 7000 currently described. We watched the video from National Geographic and we learned a lot (some people were grossed out, though). Here are some past Wonders that might help you in your quest to learn more about videos: One result is to make these spiders seem rather diabolical to … You know what can never end? We often see them in the same places where we see spiders. We Wonder if you have a guess for the next Wonder of the Day®? Habitat. How do I get a picture when I comment, like when you comment you have a picture of wonderopolis. The mating rituals of bigger species are much easier to observe, and Clouse has gotten an eyeful. I liked today's wonder! In Europe, terms like ‘harvestmen’ and ‘shepherd spiders’—and even their scientific name, Opiliones—refer to them as being associated with good pasture, harvest season, or perhaps even their resemblance to shepherds on stilts or the shape of a scythe.”, These arachnids can be found on every continent but Antarctica. Unlike lizards, daddy longlegs' legs will not grow back if they lose them. Although losing its legs might help a harvestman escape a predator, it seriously hurts its ability to sense the world around it. A daddy long legs. We think it would be really interesting to learn why some daddy longlegs actually have short legs, too! :-) Thanks for letting us know how much you enjoy Wonderopolis! We can't wait to Wonder with you again tomorrow! Mostly, though, daddy longlegs is used to refer to Opiliones, which are an order of arachnids also known as harvestmen. Daddy longlegs do have some spider-like qualities since, like spiders, they are classified as arachnids . During the herding era, only half of the corgi puppies would have short legs. Although spiders may not be your favorite insects, it sounds like this Wonder below will make you smile! They have eight legs and look a bit like spiders, but there are several key differences. Most daddy longlegs species "mate with the male depositing sperm inside the female," Clouse says. :), Hey there, Wonder Friend Sandy! Thank you for letting us know! Texas HS football star banned for attacking referee. Because daddy longlegs have such thin legs, they can detach when we try to pick them up! :), We think all of your extra WONDERing on what you learned about daddy longlegs in today's Wonder is SUPER, Mrs. Utter’s Kindergarten Class! :-), Hi, James! Mrs. Smith's class. 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