How to identify and treat daddy long legs

When you think of creepy crawlies, you can’t help but think of long-legged creatures sneakily climbing up the walls and skittering away when disturbed. If one creature could summarize the feeling of creepy and crawly, daddy long legs might just hold that place in our minds.

But these harmless arthropods get a bad rap for a lot of myths and misconceptions that follow them. For one, daddy long legs, also known as harvestmen, aren’t really spiders at all. They are closely related to spiders and fall under the Arachnid category, but they are a completely different creature altogether!

Spider or not, these faux spiders can sometimes be an unsettling sight when they make camp in our homes, garages, or basements.

Daddy long legs aren’t hard to identify, especially with their notorious long legs. Additionally, unlike true spiders that have a distinct division between the cephalothorax and abdomen, daddy long legs have these two segments fused together. This makes it look like it has one solid body mass.

Additionally, daddy long legs have a defense mechanism that allows them to detach a leg or two to escape from a predator. So while most daddy long legs have eight legs, you might come across a few that have narrowly escaped by shedding a leg.

How big are daddy long legs?

Daddy long legs look a lot bigger than they really are. Their body is only about ¼ inch, while their long legs can spread out to over an inch long.

What other bugs look like a daddy long legs?

There are a couple of arthropods that share the name “daddy long legs.” The first is cellar spiders that have long legs, but they spin webs in the corners of attics and basements, whereas harvestmen can’t spin webs.

Additionally, some people call crane flies daddy long legs, but they have six legs and wings, and are insects.

Finding one or two daddy long legs might be a surprise or an annoyance, but when they start to cluster in large numbers, things can start to get out of hand!

By themselves, daddy long legs don’t pose any serious threat. However, they do possess defensive stink glands that can become a nuisance if they get high enough in numbers.

The thing to remember, though, is that daddy long legs might be a symptom of another problem you have in your home. Daddy long legs like damp areas and can often eat smaller insects and arthropods.

Sticky traps can help monitor for daddy long legs and other crawling insects, and a perimeter spray around the home, like the one Pestie offers, can effectively deter them as well.

Daddy long legs like to lurk in damp, moist, and dark areas that are full of things to eat, like decaying vegetation, spiders, earthworms, or insect eggs. They will even eat dead insects too. You can find them in your garden, under leaf litter, or in your basement, garage, or crawl space.