I was born in Southern California, raised in San Diego and Lancaster, and lived in L.A. for nearly two decades. In my experience, ‘daddy long-legs’ always referred to the spider. I never saw a harvestman outside of a photograph until two years ago when I moved to the Pacific Northwest. Maybe calling the spiders DDLs is a Southern California thing? (Hey, I only recently found out that many people outside of SoCal don’t know what a ‘chili size’ is.)
Re: the link. It worked yesterday when I posted it. It had a really neat 3-D shot of the spider. (Fortunately I have my ‘ghost finder’ thingy that came with the DVD of the original 13 Ghosts. ) I’m getting a ‘disc space violation’ message. I apologise to the author, if he tracks the link back here. (Perhaps a mod can delete it with an explanation?)
I apologize for my incorrect assumption, it was based on your writing style. The corrected version is
Please don’t tell our new arachnid overlords, I for one welcome them.
I read your article on Dolomedes, very interesting. I also would like to say Welcome, it’s good to kibbitz with someone who knows from which they speak.
No worries. You aren’t the first to say that I write like a man, and you probably won’t be the last. I should write SF books under a male pseudonym, ala James Tiptree, Jr., and see how long I can keep the secret
Not all harvestmen emit a odor, and the odor is different depending on the species. It’s quite possible the harvestman army that invaded your camping site didn’t emit one. Some of the odors are faintly pleasant, like those that emit a minty smell.
The active ingredient in mosquito sprays (like OFF) is DEET. It’s effective, but pretty much outreeks anything else.
Tenebrosus, you are most welcome at SDMB. I was about to post this in a separate thread, but while I have your attention:
Are centipedes poisonous?
We were invaded by three of these on Christmas Eve night. Maybe they came in with the firewood. Or maybe they just knew enough to come in out of the rain and sneak out from under the sofa. They were small ones – only a couple of inches long.
It was worth it to see Poppa John in a frenzy to get the thing off of his leg.
We live in Nashville if that information is helpful.
I will have to check my books tomorrow, but I believe that all centipedes are venomous. I don’t know of any that cause problems for humans, other than the large centipedes can inflict a very painful bite.
An interesting trivial tidbit: The last person to study centipedes died about 10 years ago. Which means that anyone who wants to study centipedes (which is in need of a revision), will almost have to start from scratch.
Millipedes, which are not venomous (they are herbivores), are currently being revised by a couple of people who also study spiders. Petra Sierwald at the Chicago Museum of Natural History is one.
Zoe, we’d really sort of kind of mostly like to keep separate questions in separate threads. It makes it easier for later readers to find.
So, if you’d like to start a separate thread on centipedes (in the General Questions forum, please), and email me with the thread title and I’ll post a link.
Call it administrative bookkeeping, but that way when someone searches for “centipedes” in the thread title in future, they’ll find it more easily. OK?
I was drawn like a fly…well …I read too much after stumbling across this thread on poisonous spiders and then accessed a few of the urls provided on various posts, including your Spiderpharm.com. Nowhere on that site could I find an answer to my question of why on earth anyone would want to purchase spider venom? Now I am sure there are a few people that are studying venom, but it certainly cannot be sufficient numbers to support an entire business? Actually scary were the offers to sell live funnel web spiders, among the most deadly, if not the most deadly known spider, not currently considered a US specimen, but obviously alive, and for sale, very cheap in the AZ location of Spiderpharm.com. there were allusions to hits, terminology I am only familiar in the context of illegal substances for recreational use. Are people taking spider venom for a high? A low? Just had to ask. Thanks.
The business was started in the early 1980s with a simple directive: Promote the exploration of spider venoms by making a wider variety of the venoms available to laboratories with diverse interests. Very few spider venoms were being studied at that and most of these were only available from researchers who had developed their own sources.
and
Reminder:Venoms and other bioactive preparations are not shipped to individuals.
Second-hand information, here, but buddies of mine in Boy Scouts reported that our local (northeast Ohio) Daddy-Long-Legs tasted like peppermint. I never tasted one, though, and I never noticed an airborne odor, either.
Incidentally, we never called them anything but Daddy-Long-Legs, we knew they were not true spiders, and the myth that they were venomous never reached us. I guess we were doing pretty well on our Opiliones knowledge.
I once owned a Doberman who was a loyal and wonderful dog. Early in her life she developed cancer which required a section of her back right-leg to be excised.
Late one evening, while reclining in an easy-chair with my dobie sleeping next to me and only the light of the television in my frontroom, my Doberman violently arose and shook her head. Through the light of the television, I saw something swirling through the air which I initially though was drool. When this hit the carpet in front of the television, it quickly ran under the armoir. In my horror, I found a very large Centipede which I killed and discarded outside Three days later, my dog died. This creature had enough poison to kill an eighty pound animal.
Tenebrosus, I’d also like to welcome your clear writing, detailed knowledge and thoughtful insights. And, 'fess up that I also assumed you were a man, based not so much on writing style as on a stereotype about the “hard” sciences. I’m glad to find that there are so many female scientists working in the field.
I considered entomology myself in my youth, but was held back by an irrational squeamishness. (Centipedes, for instance, creep me out ten times as much as spiders do. I’ve actually killed one with a sword to avoid getting any closer to it.)
I’ve also had the experience of having dozens of daddy-long-legs on my tent; maybe they like the moisture on the fabric in the early morning. Happens every time I go to Lake Tobesofkee in Georgia.
My Dog was fine until the bite…The effect on her was gradually slow until she died. years earlier, like I pointed out, she had cancer which was removed. maybe the bite aggravted cancer cells, I don’t know. It was a big Centipede.
) I’m getting a ‘disc space violation’ message. I apologise to the author, if he tracks the link back here. (Perhaps a mod can delete it with an explanation?)
