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The AFU and Urban Legend Archive Animals daddy long legs poisonous
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The AFU and Urban Legend Archive Animals daddy long legs poisonous
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From: allannah@best.com
Subject: Daddy Longlegs most poisonous spider...
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Date: 22 Jul 1999 00:24:08 GMT
Heard a new one today not from one but from two sources claiming that the Daddy Longleg spider is the most venomous "spider" in the world, it just doesn't have the capabilities to bite humans. I did some searching on this because I had never heard this particular info before.
Came up with :
>From the sites I read my conclusion is that none of the things we call
daddy longlegs are particularly poisonous. The spider may have venom as
most spiders do but as for it's deadliness I'm not convinced. Has anyone
heard this particular legend before. Any other refutations or
verifications of this particular tale?
Nancy
From: jajohn@lightspeed.net (Judy Johnson)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Daddy Longlegs most poisonous spider...
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 02:11:51 GMT
On 22 Jul 1999 00:24:08 GMT, allannah@best.com wrote:
>Heard a new one today not from one but from two sources claiming that the
>Daddy Longleg spider is the most venomous "spider" in the world, it just
>doesn't have the capabilities to bite humans. I did some searching on
>this because I had never heard this particular info before.
>
>Came up with :
>
>1. Daddy longlegs is the name for three (or more) insects or arachnids.
>The one we in the US call daddy longlegs is an arachnid, not actually a
>spider. Also called a Harvestman. In England its a crane fly. In
>Australia there is a spider called daddy longlegs that are pholcid spiders.
>(personally it's this last one that I think of since I'm pretty sure the
>things I call daddy longlegs have webs, so there is a certain amount of
>confusion still on my part here)
Such is the joy of common names. There are several pholcid spiders common throughout North America that many people refer to as 'daddy longlegs', and I know of at least one reputable text that refers to pholcids as 'daddy longleg spiders' to differentiate them from phalangids (another name for long-legged harvestmen.) Not all harvestmen (arachnids in the order Opiliones) should be called daddy longlegs, as some are not. Long-legged, that is.
>2. Most of the sites that talked about Daddy Longlegs had no mention of
>deadly venom.
If'n they're referring to harvestmen, that's 'cause they ain't got none. Opiliones have no venom glands, They do have some scent glands that make a stink, and I'm guessing that getting some of the scent into a skin abrasion would smart a bit. But no 'fangs' and no venom glands.
>3. One site, http://www.xs4all.nl/~ednieuw/Spiders/Pholcidae/Pholcidae.htm
>had this mention. "It is said that the venom of this spider is one of the
>most poisonous. Since the fangs of these spiders are too small to penetrate
>the skin, it is not considered a dangerous spider. Many spiders use their
>venom to kill their prey but the poison of almost all of them is harmless
>to humans." (Said by who?)
By about half the third graders I've ever encountered, and a number of adults, as well. I get this factoid related to me quite a bit.
I've searched the literature, trying to find any study that actually measures the toxicity of either pholcids or harvestmen, and have turned up one Russian paper on toxicity of pholcid venom. I was unable to get ahold of a copy, but I seriously doubt this would have been the origin of our little factoid.
>From the sites I read my conclusion is that none of the things we call
>daddy longlegs are particularly poisonous. The spider may have venom as
>most spiders do but as for it's deadliness I'm not convinced. Has anyone
>heard this particular legend before. Any other refutations or
>verifications of this particular tale?
This little bit of misinformation has come up on AFU in times past, but I gather that Deja is no longer as useful for searching older posts as 'twas. It has also been discussed in a few arachnid/arthropod oriented mail groups, and has always been handily debunked by the various spider experts that hang out at those particular street corners.
For your debunking pleasure:
Harvestmen have no venom glands, so we will concentrate on pholcids,
I have known people who have actually been bit by pholcids, and it 'twern't no big deal. They tend to be fairly laid back spiders, and not prone to biting, but they are actually capable of doing so.
If they couldn't bite, the only way to be able to determine toxicity of their venom would be to extract some and perform some sort of laboratory bioassay. Nothing seems to exist in the literature that documents this.
Most studies of spider toxicity deals with those species that are medically important; those that can and will bite. If the pholcid 'can't bite', why would anyone be studying the venom? Why pick on pholcids?
Using this same logic, we couldn't award "the most venomous" title to *any* species of spider until we had studied every other species. This has certainly not been done. Heck, we haven't even named them all yet.
Finally, most spider texts list South American species in the family Ctenidae (not, that's not a pyto) as the most venomous known to science.
Judy "maybe we could put something in the archives or da FAQ, hmmm?"
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