Daddy Long-Legs Spider

[spencervirt]

Hello! I found a nice sized daddy long legs spider for my mantis. Is this safe to feed? Thanks!

 

[[email protected]]

[SIZE=14pt]well they are more poisonous they any spider which they are not, lucky they can't bit you or me with such little fangs. [/SIZE]

 

[PhilinYuma]

Like all spiders, they are venomous, but reportedly mildly so. If the mantis is big enough to eat it, I'd say go for it. You'll be cleaning up legs for days though!

 

[massaman]

First of all, there are actually three kinds of critters called daddy longlegs. The common name daddy longlegs is most often used to describe Opiliones, aka harvestmen. Opiliones are arachnids, but not spiders. They have no venom glands at all, and are absolutely not venomous.

 

[Rick]

First of all, there are actually three kinds of critters called daddy longlegs. The common name daddy longlegs is most often used to describe Opiliones, aka harvestmen. Opiliones are arachnids, but not spiders. They have no venom glands at all, and are absolutely not venomous. The nickname daddy longlegs may also refer to a crane fly, which is a true fly and a member of the order Diptera. Crane flies do not pose a threat, either.Sometimes, the name daddy longlegs is used for another group of arachnids, the spiders of the family Pholcidae. These spiders are also called cellar spiders.

Cellar spiders do have venom glands. However, there is no scientific evidence whatsoever to confirm that their venom can harm a human being. Not a single documented case exists of a person being bitten by one and having an adverse reaction.

Pholcid spiders do have short fangs, but not any shorter than other spiders that have been known to bite humans. The cellar spider's fangs are similar in structure to those of a brown recluse spider, which we know can and does bite humans. Again, there is no evidence or proof to the claim that their fangs are too short to bite a person.

In fact, the show Mythbusters tackled this daddy longlegs legend back in 2004. Host Adam Savage subjected himself to a cellar spider bite, proving that the daddy longlegs spider is indeed capable of breaking human skin. The results? Savage reported nothing more than a very mild, short-lived burning sensation. Analysis of the daddy longlegs' venom revealed it's nowhere near as potent as venom from a black widow spider

Are these your words or did you copy and paste them from somewhere else? If you did then you need to cite that source!

 

[agent A]

feed it to the matis, they love daddy longlegs, I give pregnant female chinese mantids them all the time. They eat the legs like french fries! :lol:

and by the way, my grandpa calls mantids daddy longlegs, so I hope you're not encouraging cannabalizm there <_<

 

[[email protected]]

[SIZE=14pt]well they are more poisonous they any spider which they are not, lucky they can't bit you or me with such little fangs. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14pt]Ok the Daddy long-lags I am thinking of they are not spider they have 8 legs with only 1 segment "like my wife said a little tennis ball with 8 long legs that ate aphyds", and I haven't found any pic of the kind I am talking about, I know its not celler spider. [/SIZE]

 

[Ntsees]

Hello! I found a nice sized daddy long legs spider for my mantis. Is this safe to feed? Thanks!

It looks like a harvestmen. Harvestmens are semi-safe to feed to your mantids. I don't think they have poison. If my memory serves me right, I recall that harvestmens have these pinchers on their chelicerae (equivalent to a scorpion's pinchers but smaller) in which they use to grasp prey for consumption. The only problem is that when your mantid is feeding on it, it may use these pinchers to defend itself (your won't see it directly because the pinchers are closed and tucked under it's mouth). That's the only potential danger I see. When I saw these tiny pinchers trying to pinch my mantid in the past as it was being consumed, I stopped using them as a food source. Between harvestmens and daddy-long leg spiders, daddy-long leg spiders are a safer food particle.

 

[hibiscusmile]

Yum!