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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey

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Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum. Here here's one you might have

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Speaker 1: heard before. Urban legend has it that Daddy long Legs

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Speaker 1: carry the most toxic venom of any known spider, but

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Speaker 1: the tail goes. Their little fangs can't penetrate human skin.

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Speaker 1: This story has no basis in fact, and besides, Daddy

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Speaker 1: long Legs is a colloquial name that's been applied to

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Speaker 1: a wide range of unrelated animals, most don't even qualify

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Speaker 1: as spiders. Colloquial or common names can be confusing, but

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Speaker 1: was sure they're catchier and less in Latin than the

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Speaker 1: formal scientific names for species, but at least that scientific

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Speaker 1: nomenclature is fairly standardized. A genus or species name may

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Speaker 1: change as living things are reclassified, but common names for

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Speaker 1: the same creature can change from region to region. For example,

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Speaker 1: you know that crustacean that looks like a smaller version

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Speaker 1: of a lobster. What do you call those crayfish? Crawfish, crawdads, yabbies,

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Speaker 1: freshwater lobsters. They're all names for closely related animals. As

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Speaker 1: common names go, Daddy long Legs is overused, and it's

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Speaker 1: pretty inconsistent. Usually when Americans say it, they're referring to

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Speaker 1: one of the six thousand plus aracted species within the

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Speaker 1: order of Pillionnaise. Some folks know these critters as the harvestmen,

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Speaker 1: but they're not spiders. Look at a spider and you'll

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Speaker 1: see two main body segments that are clearly distinguishable, the

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Speaker 1: cephalothorax where the head resides, and the abdomen. On harvestmen,

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Speaker 1: these components are fused, giving the body an oval like appearance.

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Speaker 1: And whereas spiders have eight eyes, harvestmen only have two.

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Speaker 1: Unable to produce silk, harvest men don't build webs, and

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Speaker 1: they don't have venom. We spoke by an email with

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Speaker 1: Rick Vetter, a biologist and author who's confronted plenty of

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Speaker 1: misconceptions about spiders and their kin. He explained, except for

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Speaker 1: one weird family, all spiders have venom to subdue prey.

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Speaker 1: Harvestmen have no venom, So let the records show that

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Speaker 1: they are not dangerous to humans. But you can breathe

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Speaker 1: easy around these daddy long legs, unless, of course, you

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Speaker 1: are their prey. Instead of venomating other animals, harvestmen rip

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Speaker 1: their meals apart with appendages located near the mouth. Slugs, springtails,

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Speaker 1: and earthworms are just some of the invertebrates. These creatures

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Speaker 1: will hunt, though they're not too picky and don't mind

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Speaker 1: scavenging once in a while too. But harvestmen aren't the

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Speaker 1: only creatures called Daddy long legs In Great Britain Better

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Speaker 1: tells us the name refers to crane flies, which are insects.

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Speaker 1: Huntsmen and other arachnids walk around on four pairs of legs,

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Speaker 1: while crane flies only have three pairs, and insects possess

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Speaker 1: three main body segments plus a set of antenna. People

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Speaker 1: tend to get crane flies mixed up with mosquitoes, but

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Speaker 1: crane flies don't suck blood, and they spend most of

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Speaker 1: their lives as water or soil based larva. Once that

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Speaker 1: phase ends, these invertebrates mature into two winged adults. They're

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Speaker 1: not called Daddy long legs for nothing, though, just as advertised,

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Speaker 1: mature crane flies do in fact have noticeably long legs.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes these appendages are twice the length of the insects body.

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Speaker 1: The biggest known crane fly displays a ten inch leg

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Speaker 1: span that's twenty five cimeters. Adults don't tend to have

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Speaker 1: big appetites. Certain species will stop eating altogether after the

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Speaker 1: larval stage, and nevertheless, crane flies provide an important food

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Speaker 1: source for other animals, including reptiles, birds, and spiders, speaking

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Speaker 1: of which, in a surprise twist, some people reserve the

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Speaker 1: common name Daddy long legs for a group of actual spiders.

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Speaker 1: Let us introduce the false to day, better known as

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Speaker 1: these seller spiders. These arachnids enjoy dark habitats such as

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Speaker 1: empty burrows, rocky crevices, and of course sellers. One species

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Speaker 1: of European origin now shacks up in human dwellings all

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Speaker 1: over the world. Fall kiss phialanioidas is a yellowish brown

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Speaker 1: predator that weaves horizontally oriented webs. Falseod fangs are tiny,

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Speaker 1: only about a quarter of a millimeter long, and they're

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Speaker 1: designed to make physical contact with a corresponding spine to

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Speaker 1: form pinchers, not unlike a pair of tweezers. And while

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Speaker 1: falsehoods are venomous, the good news is that venoms don't

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Speaker 1: affect all targets equally. When researchers examined the venom of

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Speaker 1: a falsehood called faiso cyclists mexicanus in They found it

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Speaker 1: was extremely hazardous to insects, yet the creatures bite had

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Speaker 1: an inconsequential effect on mammals. There's simply no evidence that

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Speaker 1: this arachnet, nor any of the seller spiders is harmful

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Speaker 1: to human beings. Still, we may be on the cusp

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Speaker 1: of something here. Fal Kiss Phalanioidas specializes in killing and

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Speaker 1: devouring other spiders, including members of its own species, So

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Speaker 1: who knows. Maybe those diet preferences gave rise to the

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Speaker 1: nonsense rumors about super toxic Daddy long Live's venom. Today's

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Speaker 1: episode was written by Mark Mancini and produced by Tyler Clang.

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Speaker 1: For more on this and lots of other creepy Crawley topics,

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Speaker 1: visit how stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is a

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