Daddy Long Legs Garden Spiders 2

This is most probably the animal to which people refer when they tell the tale because these garden spiders are plentiful especially in cellars and are commonly seen by the public. The most common pholcid spiders found in American homes are both European garden spiders. Pholcus phalangioides is a uniformly grey spider with rectangular, elongate abdomen and is found throughout America. Holocnemus pluchei also has a rectangular, elongate abdomen but has brown striping on the belly side – which is typically directed upwards since the spider hangs upside down in its web, which covers its sternum and is a stripe on the stomach. These garden spiders are very common along the West Coast. and into the arid desert areas. Is there any truth to this wives-tale? Daddy-longlegs garden spiders, eat decomposing vegetative and animal matter although are opportunist predators if they can get away with it. They do not possess venom glands, fangs or any other way to chemically subdue their food. Therefore, they do not have poison and, cannot be poisonous from venom. Some have defensive secretions that might be poisonous to small animals if ingested. So, for these daddy-long-legs, the tale is clearly false. Daddy-longlegs garden spiders: Here, the myth is incorrect at least in making claims that have no basis in known facts. There is no reference to any pholcid garden spider biting a person and causing any problem. If these spiders were actually deadly poisonous but couldn’t bite humans, then the only way we would know that they are poisonous is by milking them and injecting the venom into humans. For obvious reasons, this has never been done.

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