Saying that Daddy Long Legs are arachnids causes some issues! In North America harvestmen (order Opiliones) are known as daddy long legs, and are arachnids. In the UK the term Daddy Long Legs applies to certain crane files (family Tipulidae) which are insects.
3 comments:
What a confusing and useless generic name. International confusion of first order and confounded further by the fact that here in N.America Daddy Long Legs are not necessarily spiders. We can't seem to get it sorted out whether that generic epithet should be used for spiders such as cellar spiders of the family Pholcidae or for non-spider arachnids of the order Opiliones. What a mess.
Opilionids and Tipulids sound much nicer and cause less confusion!
I've heard the term used here in the UK for Pholcus, so it's not exclusively an American phenomenon.
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