Invite Daddy-Longlegs into Your Garden

Every so often, I rescue a spider from my bathroom, and sometimes I need to call my husband to help. I do the same for other creatures, but I have always been particularly curious about spiders. One spider type that visits often has very long legs, which are well known as daddy-longlegs.

I have been noticing these daddy-longlegs in various parts of our yard and wondered whether they are beneficial to my garden or something of concern. Once again, my research into this question took me down another rabbit-hole of unexpected information.

I was pleased to learn that, yes, the daddy longlegs add to the garden ecology!  I found out that they have an extensive diet of usual plant pests, like aphids, and will also feast on dead insects and even a spattering of bird droppings. 

To my surprise, I also found out that daddy-longlegs (Opillones) are not actually a spider (Araneae), they just look like one. One visible distinction between daddy-longlegs and spiders is that they have one round body part, while spiders have two.  Another difference is that daddy-longlegs do not have the silk glands necessary to create webs and do not produce venom.

BUT wait: Most of the daddy-longlegs that I usually see are hanging out in spider webs! I took a closer look and I now see that these guys do have double bodies. So, what I have been thinking was a daddy-longlegs is, in fact a spider known as the cellar spider, Pholcidae. It also turns out that they are beneficial to the garden. The cellar spiders feed on flies, mosquitoes, brown recluses, cockroaches, and even black widows. Oh, and they are not venomous to humans!

Thus, I had another pleasurable day of discoveries. The bottom line is that both the daddy-longlegs and cellar spiders are beneficial and not dangerous… welcome residents in our garden.

Cellar spider - plutozoom

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