Is the daddy long leg spider poisonous

What do Daddy-long-legs Spiders look like?

Table of Contents Show

Daddy Long Legs Spiders – the full story
Are Daddy Long Legs more poisonous than black widows?
What is the world's most venomous spider?
How poisonous is a daddy long legs?
Are Daddy Long Legs friendly?

The Daddy-long-legs Spider is one of the most easily recognisable spiders as they have extremely long, skinny legs. It’s body can be up to 1cm long but legs can be much longer, depending on the species. They are a pale brown or creamy colour and can have darker markings on their legs and abdomen.

Where are Daddy Long Legs found?

Almost every house or shed in Australia has been home to the messy, tangled web of the Daddy-long-legs, especially as the weather begins to cool towards winter and the spiders seek warmth indoors. The common type of Daddy-long-legs found in suburban backyards across Australia is an introduced European spider (Pholcus phalangioides).

Fast facts:

There is a long held urban myths about Daddy-long-longs Spiders is that it is one of the most venomous spiders in the world but it’s fangs are too small to pierce human skin. Unfortunately this is not true. A Daddy-long-legs Spider can give a small bite, although it is very unlikely to happen.
A Daddy-long-legs spider can live to almost 3 years of age. In that time a female can have up to 8 clutches of 50 or more eggs.

Daddy Long Legs Spiders – the full story

The Daddy-long-legs Spider is on of the most easily recognisable spiders as they have extremely long, skinny legs. It’s body can be up to 1cm long but legs can be much longer, depending on the species.

Many of our backyard buddies find their way inside our homes and take up temporary residence, and one of the most successful and ever-present is the Daddy-long-legs spider.

They’re hard to dislike, with their spindly and delicate legs and tiny body making them one of the few spiders that even arachnophobes might be able to pick up and take outside. We remove them regularly on the end of a broom and put them outside, but somehow, they always manage to find their way back in again.

They are also suprisingly good mothers to their young. After laying her eggs the mother spider will wrap them in silk and carry them around for about 3 weeks in her mouth. Once they hatch they will ride around on their mothers back until they are ready to run off across her web and leave her protection behind. It takes about 1 year for a baby Daddy-long-legs to reach adulthood. They can then live up to another 2 years as an adult. In that time a female can have up to 8 clutches of 50 or more eggs. That’s over 400 baby spiders!

Yet despite their apparent harmlessness, Daddy-long-legs have little trouble catching, wrapping and killing much larger Huntsman spiders. They have even been known to catch Redback spiders and Funnel-web spiders, both of which are far larger and more toxic than the Daddy-long-legs.

So, what’s their secret?

Certainly not their fangs or their venom – it’s their extremely long legs.

When a Huntsman, Redback or Funnel-web is walking along, the Daddy-long-legs can simply reach down and haul the more dangerous (but shorter-legged) spider into its web. It swiftly wraps up its prey before the captor can get close enough to harm the Daddy-long-legs. Once the more deadly spider is immobilised, it is easy to bite and kill.

Larger, heavier spiders are particularly vulnerable as they walk across a slippery smooth surface. If they do become entangled in a Daddy-long-legs’ web, the smooth surface becomes treacherous because it offers no grip for the prey spider to hang on to. So, while their messy webs might make the Daddy-long-legs appear unsightly, they might well be preventing far more undesirable spiders from taking up residence in our homes.

Did you know?

There is a long held urban myths about Daddy-long-longs Spiders is that it is one of the most venomous spiders in the world but it’s fangs are too small to pierce human skin. Unfortunately this is not true! A Daddy-long-legs Spider can give a small bite, although it is very unlikely to happen. If you think you have been bitten by any type of spider it is best to seek medical attention if there is any reaction to the skin at all.

Credit CC2.5, Akio Tanikawa

You've probably heard the urban legend: Daddy long-leg spiders possess extremely toxic venom—so toxic that it would kill a human if only their fangs were long/strong enough to penetrate human skin.

After more than a decade of research, Professor of Biology Greta Binford and Research Associate and Visiting Professor Pamela Zobel-Thropp have discovered for the first time what is in the venom of these animals, and compiled evidence of the effects of their venoms on humans. The new evidence crushes that old urban legend.

In a new research paper, "Not So Dangerous After All," just published in the journal Frontiers in Evolution and Ecology, Binford and Zobel-Thropp detail their chemical analysis of pholcid (commonly known as cellar spiders or daddy long-legs) venom. Their results show that the venom is full of interesting proteins and peptides and is highly toxic to insects, but all evidence indicates it has negligible toxicity on mammals especially when compared with black widow venom, for example.

In 2014, Discover Network's hit series MythBusters took the liberty of dispelling the daddy long-legs myth with venom from the same species and overseen by Chuck Kristensen, a coauthor on this work; however, until Binford's paper was published, there had been no rigorous analysis of what is in the venom of any pholcid spiders.

Funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health since 2011, the paper details the team's diligent pursuit of solid evidence. To reach their findings, the team analyzed the composition of venom of one species of pholcid, which contains over 120 different proteins and peptides that contribute to toxicity.

"Rather than fearing daddy long-legs, we are inspired by the potential for discovery of new chemical activities in these venoms," Binford said. "They represent a cool, little studied and diverse branch of biodiversity from which we have much to learn."

To accomplish the analysis, the team relied on technologies for high-throughput sequencing and "proteomics." This work inspired building technology and a support team at Lewis & Clark for high-performance computing.

Thanks to support from Jeremy McWilliams at Lewis & Clark's Watzek Library Digital Initiatives Office, the team used the college's HPC cluster (lovingly named BLT for its three servers: bacon, lettuce, and tomato—better together) to crunch data analyzing 9 proteomes and 22 transcriptomes. The use of high-performance computing not only provided otherwise unattainable insights and discoveries, it also proved invaluable in training student-researchers.

"Having hands-on opportunity for our students to use high-performance computing expands their analytical abilities and allows them to be less limited in the scope of questions they can ask and answer," Binford said. "It also gives us the chance to teach students how to critically evaluate evidence coming from analyses of 'big data.""

Her research team included students (both current and since-graduated), collaborators from other higher-education institutions, and even one local high-school student.

"Being a part of Greta's research team was one of the greatest privileges I have had in my life," said Jennifer Mullins BA '12, who now works in healthcare administration in Western Washington. "Coming from an underprivileged background, I always felt as though I was behind my peers at Lewis & Clark. Thus when applying for the coveted position as a Roger's Fellow in the Binford Lab, I was sure I was the least likely candidate. But Greta picked me and allowed me to continue a project I had started in her lab the semester prior looking into the daddy long-legs venom myth. What floors me is she let me come up with the project on my own and it is crazy for me to think how it has come to fruition."

Binford is quick to credit all her research collaborators, including paper coauthor Chuck Kristensen, whom she jokingly calls her "venom dealer." Kristensen operates Spider Pharm, a company in Arizona that maintains myriad spider species colonies and produces venom for research and antivenom production, including the pholcidae species used in Binford's research.

Binford's spider research has appeared in the New Yorker, PBS's NOVA series and NPR's Science Friday, to name a few. In 2011, she was named Oregon Professor of the Year. An arachnologist and spider-woman through and through, Binford even has a species of spider named for her (the Austrarchaea binfordae).

Mullins said, "There are many moments that stood out in my experience working with the Binford research team—sailing in the Caribbean catching arachnids, education outreach to Dominican orphans and Haitian refugees—but what made the biggest impact on my life is just having Greta give me the chance to be part of the team. Having someone believe in you makes all the difference."

More information: Pamela A. Zobel-Thropp et al. Not so Dangerous After All? Venom Composition and Potency of the Pholcid (Daddy Long-Leg) Spider Physocyclus mexicanus, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (2019). DOI: 10.3389/fevo.2019.00256

Citation: Don't fear the pholcid: Daddy long-legs' venom is only dangerous if you're an insect (2019, August 7) retrieved 14 October 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2019-08-dont-pholcid-daddy-long-legs-venom.html

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Are Daddy Long Legs more poisonous than black widows?

The daddy longlegs is not harmful to humans, but they can kill redback spiders (Australian black widows). Because redback venom can kill humans, people may have believed daddy longlegs could kill us, too. Is it a myth that the daddy longlegs is the most poisonous spider on Earth? Yes, it is.

What is the world's most venomous spider?

Phoneutria are poisonous to humans, and they are considered to be the deadliest of all the world's spiders. Their venom is toxic to the nervous system, causing symptoms such as salivation, irregular heartbeat, and prolonged, painful erections (priapism) in men.

How poisonous is a daddy long legs?

Daddy long legs are not dangerous to humans. They rarely bite, and their venom is not particularly strong enough to affect humans. Thus, daddy long legs are not dangerous to humans. The legend claiming daddy long legs are deadly spiders has never been proven.

Are Daddy Long Legs friendly?

You could even say that daddy longlegs are one of the most benign insects around. They don't bite or poison anyone, and they are not garden or farm pests. They are just gentle, gawky bugs that like nothing better than meeting up together and having a communal gathering.

daddy long leg spider poisonous