#pholcids

[life-on-our-planet]

Several different types of creatures go by the name "daddy long legs", one of which are the family Pholcidae, also known as cellar spiders. They're found on every continent on Earth except Antarctica, preferring to live in human dwellings generally high out of reach where they feed on various other small invertebrates. © Nature Clearly

[poppys-pets-and-arts]

Beautiful man in my bathroom (he got scared when I put my hand up for comparison and started shaking his web)

[crevicedwelling]

I have a kind of bad quality video but don’t even know how to submit it. Do you know why a spider would be “chewing” on its legs? I don’t even know if they can chew, but it was put its legs in its mouthparts one after another, then drawing the length of the leg through while moving its mouthparts (idk if they’re called mandibles), almost EXACTLY like a human eating corn on the cob.

It also might be a zombie. It’s pale and thin like a dried carcass and it has been there for like a month or more. This is the first time I have seen any movement.

Unrelated but for some reason in my head when I read your username it is pronounced like “ceviche”

that’s how spiders clean themselves. if it’s extremely thin with a sort of rod or oval shaped body, probably a pholcid. they’re just shaped like that

[arachnophanatic]

My parents have a truly impressive cellar spider collection at their house (family Pholcidae). Mom won’t kill them but she also hates looking at them, so I’m trying to move them one by one away from the property. Some of females I moved yesterday had egg sacs, including this one above. I knew Pholcids carried their egg sacs in their jaws but this was my first time actually seeing it!

[drhoz]

#2007 - Smeringopus natalensis -

Natal Daddy-Longlegs Spider

Unfortunately, on top of the opening of the Dawesville Cut completely changing the salinity profile around Cooleenup Island, a fair number of people have built holiday homes on the delta, and that means an influx of species not native to the island as well. Such as this Pholcid, originally found in Southern Africa but now fairly common in parts of Australia, at least in bushland near houses although not common in actual houses.

Smeringopus natalensis is currently found in Southern Australia from Adelaide to Perth. However, a very similar species also from Africa, Smeringopus pallidus, is quite common in South-east Queensland as well as the Caribbean, South America, Sri Lanka, China, Laos, Philippines, Indonesia, & Pacific islands. The other 53 species in the genus all appear to have stayed home in Africa.

[anyonghalimaw]

one of my core memories is seeing 2 pholcid spiders in our garage as a kid chillin on the same web and one of them was wrapping up a bug 2 eat but fucking dropped it and the other spider ran fast as all fuck 2 grab it and continued wrapping it and ate it. animal moment

[hapalopus]

"Bathroom spiders" (Pholcids) evolved to live in dank caves, which is why they're perfectly adapted to live in bathrooms, and I think that's beautiful

It's actually funny how humans decided "fuck living in caves with all these creepy crawlies", got out of caves, built houses that have all the nice parts of a cave without any of the yucky parts, and then all the little bugs and spiders and other creepy crawly creatures that used to also live in caves thought "sweet, new and improved caves" and moved right back in with us.

[enfaeutchie]

Immature pholcids be like "mummy mummy can we whirl madly again"

[jemimabobs]

So uh, I made a spider Roger.

I might actually make this into an au (monster bug au?) where everyone is a spider/bug hybrid, so in this au the signal tower warps people into insects and bugs alongside warping proportions, and that’s pretty much it. I’m also going to design the Lady, Hunter, Teacher, Pretender, RCG and RK but if anyone wants to add the other characters or their LN ocs too I’d love to see it!!!

Prepare for lots of spider talk:

I was originally gonna make Roger a deinopidae for obvious reasons (if you know a lot about spiders) but I thought that would fit another character better, also deinopis have good eyesight while pholcidae rely on their other senses and long limbs to navigate, and I just thought if that isn’t Roger what is lol, so I made him a pholcidae instead. So some things about pholcid Roger is that he has four arms (I thought six would be too many to keep track of) lots of eyes but he is nearly entirely blind, so just covers them like normal Roger. He can also make webs and stuff from his hands and eats bugs probably. He still takes care of the children of the Maw as normal too.

[cyber-zombiee]

So, I'm about to go to bed because it's currently 5AM where I am, but I noticed the other day that I have a cellar spider chilling right between my bed & my wall. So, I blow on it to get it to move away & I felt a little better about sleeping.

Tonight I look around the side of my bed again and notice that the spider I dealt with the other night now has a buddy. My skin is absolutely crawing rn, and I'm gonna remove them tomorrow.

But the thing is, I'm researching them because I'm really paranoid about them crawling up the side of my bed while I'm sleeping and it turns out they're actually super passive & don't really fuck with humans?

I still don't feel comfortable at with them chilling so close to me, but I'll admit that my mind's been put at ease a bit? And apparently they eat spiders that are MUCH bigger than them - which is amazing for me because other spiders are arseholes.

If you guys know already I'm severely aracnophobic, but I guess after learning about my current... predicament, I think I can give cellar spiders a free pass. I do have some in the corners of my room that don't bother me at all, but these guys are way too close for comfort. But as long as they don't go near me I guess I'll trust that they'll leave me alone, haha.

[ratcandy]

whatever. Go my pholcid

i just need one more spider.that ISN'T a theridiid or araneid.

[vulture-jack]

Good sized cellar spider in my kitchen. Beneficial house guests if you dont mind the cobwebs. They might be frail, but I've seen their webs catch stinkbugs, along with small clothing damaging moths, flies and other pests. #spider #spiders #pholcid #pholcidae #bugs #insects #arachnids #arachnid #cellarspider https://www.instagram.com/p/B4y4AdSBhi7/?igshid=srofbw6xcjc6

[crevicedwelling]

Question: why are cellar spiders Built Like That? What's the advantage to being so spindly? Apart from being a Creature

while not all of them live in caves, most pholcids dwell in dark hollows that are at least cave-like, and you can see some of the same adaptations to living somewhere very dark where food comes by rarely. long thin legs covered in tiny hairs help sense the motion of prey, and for pholcids helps them keep a good grip on their webs. since they use silk to trap their prey, there’s no need to have muscular, strong limbs ike a wolf spider or tarantula that has to grapple with its meals—better to be a just a stomach on stilts.

[is-the-bug-video-cute]

I'm not afraid of bugs, I love watching them to their thing when I get the chance, but I do have a very intense and visceral *disgust* at the thought of them touching me. Maybe disgust isn't the right word, but it's the best one I can find to describe it. Do you think exposure therapy would help with this as well? I've had times where I saw like a moth or something stuck somewhere indoors and wanted to help it, but I couldn't bring myself to touch it.

First of all: Handling bugs is not necessary unless you keep them as pets and need to do tank maintenance/health checks. You can love bugs without ever touching them. Most bugs would really prefer if you didn't touch them.

That said, having a phobic or disgusted response to something you *rationally know* is harmless can be really frustrating. If you want to get more comfortable touching bugs, then yeah, exposure therapy can definitely help. Here are a few ways to safely and comfortably touch bugs:

See if your local zoo/botanical garden/entomology group/ranger station/nature school has a touch lab or something similar - they'll usually let you hold roaches, stick insects, or mealworms in a safe and controlled environment.

Go to the park/woods/desert/etc., and start turning over logs and rocks until you find a good candidate for handling. Good candidates include isopods, millipedes, beetles, shield bugs, and money spiders. Just remember to wash your hands after handling as some wild species can have foul-tasting or mildly irritating secretions.

Go to your basement/bathroom/closet/shed and find a Pholcid spider. These spiders live everywhere in the world, are completely harmless, and never run very far when startled. In fact, their instinctual response when they get startled is to start vibrating very fast to confuse predators. They're extremely fragile, so you'll quickly become more more focused on not hurting them than you are on your disgust of bugs - and even if they do lose a leg, they're very good at surviving with only a few legs.

Another thing that can get your more comfortable with bugs: The next time a bug gets stuck indoors, see if you can catch it under a cup and identify its species. Bugguide.net is the best if you're in the US. Elsewhere in the world, iNaturalist is very helpful. Once you've identified the species (or at least the genus) read everything you can find about it. When you get to know your neighbors, you usually end up liking them :)

[dragonsintheattic]

I have two forms of house arthropods. There are "escapees" and there are "staff."

Most of the staff are spiders - we have a significant number of pholcids who loooove to help us deal with false widows (who we're less happy to have in the house since they can give an unpleasant bite and we have cats who don't know any better) and escaped reptile livefood.

And then there are the escapees - reptile livefood that is not in the reptile enclosure I put it in. That's why we have staff.

For wildies who wind up in the house and shouldn't be here (like the unexpected wasp lady who was in the bathroom last week) I will generally do what I can to encourage them to go outside (in the case of the aforementioned wasp, mostly while going "Ma'am, the window is open. You're two inches away from the window opening. No, to the left a little. Your OTHER left. Lady, please GO OUTSIDE") - but if one of the staff catches them, I'm not gonna stop that from happening.

(Select what you do most often and if you select 4 please tell me what you do with em)

[cypherdecypher]

Animal of the Day!

Daddy Longlegs (Pholcidae)

(Photo from Discovery)

Conservation Status- Unlisted

Habitat- Every continent (Not Antarctica)

Size (Weight/Length)- 23 mm

Diet- Spiders; Aphids; Insects

Cool Facts- 6,650 species of harvestmen have been discovered worldwide but many are more familiar with calling them daddy longlegs. It is a common myth that daddy longlegs are the most venomous spider but their fangs are too short to bite humans. This is wrong on several accounts. There are two different types of animals that are referred to as daddy longlegs. The opilionids are not technically spiders and lack any form of venom. The pholcids are spiders and do have venom with fangs that are long enough to pierce a human’s skin. However, there is no need to fear as these spiders rarely bite humans and when they do, it causes temporary burning before fading quickly after with no further medical issues. In all honesty, the pholcids daddy longlegs do more good than harm. They will actively hunt and eat much more dangerous spiders such as red back spiders that are threats to humans. If you find a daddy longlegs in your home, give them their own space and welcome your new neighbor.

Rating- 13/10 (Childhood memories, the animal.)