Spider ID

Cygnus Studios

What in the world is this ugly thing?

garyt

It's a Harvestman Steve. They're also called Daddy Longlegs in some places. Nice captures.

Lord Vetinari

Yup agree with Gary on ID - lovely captures
brian v.

Pindy

Where are those? In my part of the world, the body is miniscule.

Corehead

I concur.

Lots of them in Wisconsin (where I grew up...and LEFT FOR GOOD!!!).

garyt wrote:

It's a Harvestman Steve. They're also called Daddy Longlegs in some places. Nice captures.

mehampson

Phalangium opilio

I just posted a gallery of these little things. The species name, if my ID is correct, is Phalangium opilio, and I believe you and I both have photos of females, though I'm not 100% certain about that.

If you want to get really precise, they're called opilionids -- related to spiders, but maybe about as closely as, say, bees are to butterflies. The common name makes it confusing because they're one of a couple different unrelated animals called 'daddy long legs', depending on where you are. Cellar spiders and crane flies are the other big ones.

You can tell the difference between these and true spiders by the body, which looks like a single round segment (though it's actually two), and by the pair of eyes on a little tubercule, instead of eight eyes on the front. They also don't spin webs, and aren't venomous. Creepy looking but harmless as long as you're not an aphid or earthworm. Or another opilionid, since they're cannibalistic.

GOLDENORFE

very nice, hard to get whole bug in the frame with all those long legs:D
phil
http://www.flickr.com/photos/goldenorfe/