This spider has taken residence in a corner of one of the rooms, I’m not bothered by them but the web is getting a bit too big… can I just remove part of it to keep the size in check without causing harm to the spider?
I’m in the hospital and on many medications and I thought you were asking if you could remove part of the spider without harming the spider.
Hope you get well soon!
Might also have been a poorly phrased question on my part, since English is not my first language!
I am going to assume you have a cellar spider. Removing part of the web isn’t going to directly harm them. They don’t recycle their web so you aren’t even removing nutrients from them.
The only way it’s going to affect them is by reducing their chances of catching prey. Cellar spiders don’t have a sticky web and rather rely on prey brushing up against their web, then rushing there and killing it with a bite. So you are reducing the area they are covering.
They also usually just gradually increase the size of their web. So it’s unlikely it will try to rebuild everything you removed at once. Meaning it’s not going to waste too much energy.
Yes, the reduced chance of getting prey was the first thing that sprung to mind and I was mainly thinking about how that would mean increased hunger… but the web was getting too large to ignore, so we needed a compromise. Hope the trim won’t affect them too much!
Meaning it’s not going to waste too much energy
That’s good to hear! Thanks for all the info!
You’re a true spider bro
Spider has kept insect populations in check and I’m grateful. Plus, they’re cute
Yes. The web isn’t a horcrux or anything for the spider. I can build new webs.
Unlike spiders, Daddy Longlegs don’t spin webs because they do not produce silk. Daddy Long Legs actually have only two eyes unlike spiders who have eight. Another difference is that Daddy Longlegs are not venomous. They do not have fangs or venom glands. - from Google.
There are many arachnids that shares the common name. Opiliones, or harvestmen, is what you are referring to. But a family of spider, phoclcidae or cellar spiders, spin webs and does whatever a spider does.
Yep the common name is regional. “Daddy longlegs” can also sometimes refer to crane flies, aka mosquito hawks/mosquito eaters
Wait, I now have to research how they build their webs then, if not by spinning. Thanks for the trivia!
They prefer back and forth motion, shaking if you will, over a circular motion like stirring. Hence they don’t spin webs. They prefer them shaken.
No, the daddy long legs you’re talking about is a spider and of course it spins its webs. @PolyLlamaRous was talking about something completely different, the harvestman.
From their likely source:
Other Daddy Longlegs
Some of the confusion over whether the daddy longlegs is a spider comes from the fact that there are two are small creatures with that name, and one actually is a spider.
The daddy longlegs spider is the cellar spider. It is pale gray or tan and has banding or chevron markings. Crane flies, which resemble large mosquitoes, are sometimes called daddy longlegs as well.
