Comments on: Harvestmen

By: Manni

Manni — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 02:21:21 +0000

When I was little, I encountered a red and black one during a rock climbing activity with my parents. I think the harvestmen was shocked and so was I and I started crying due to my mild arachnaphobia (sp?). But after reading this, I want to encounter a harvestmen and love it to death. xD

Instead of counting on those gnarly house centipedes with the stingers and bad attitudes, I can count on these little critters as an Earth-supporting pesticide. And, they don’t even hurt humans! c:

By: Zool

Zool — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 17:48:25 +0000

This a really infornative piece, thanks for that !
I was always told they were ‘ Grass Spiders’ (in Lancashire) and didnt know there was confusion between Harvestmen and Daddy-Long-Legs.
All is clear now !
Ian

By: Alan

Alan — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 11:48:02 +0000

Excellent close ups. I used to see harvestmen in Britain but none since returning to Australia. Your post will motivate me to look harder

By: Tim Eisele

Tim Eisele — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 13:13:47 +0000

KT Cat: I fixed your joke. Funny, the ‘strike’ tag works when I do it. WordPress must give the site owner some special privilege to use fancy HTML in the comments.

By: K T Cat

K T Cat — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 12:30:51 +0000

Whoops! Looks like the strikethrough tag doesn’t work in these comments. There was supposed to be a strikethrough across my “daddy long legs” above.

Jokes aren’t funny if you have to explain them.

By: K T Cat

K T Cat — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 12:29:51 +0000

Another outstanding post. I had no idea that ~~daddy long legs~~ harvestmen had eye turrets. Way cool!

Another advantage to calling them harvestmen is that it seems so much more serious. With a name like that, you can just see groups of them gathering in a local bar after a long, hard day of pouncing on things from above.

By: Andy Kaiser

Andy Kaiser — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 16:30:36 +0000

I like the concept of an eye turret. Though it doesn’t seem as powerful as stereo vision. Seems they have a wide field of view – maybe good for movement detection, but not much in the way of depth perception.

It’s kind of amusing how they find each other during mating season. The males stake themselves out on a clear surface with their legs spread, and pretty much just wait for a female to amble along and trip over him. Then he quickly grabs her, and much wrestling ensues.

Huh… this sounds remarkably like how I met my wife.