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Photo: G. Bradley
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UK
Safari Tip:
A great way to see all the details on these insects and other small
creatures is with a special magnifier box - click
here
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Latin name: Phalangium opilio
Size: Body 5 to 8mms. Legs approx 50mms long
Distribution: Found throughout the U.K.
Months seen: April to October
Food: Small insects, vegetation and bird droppings
Habitat: Low vegetation and damp moss in woods, fields and gardens.
Often found under window ledges.
Special features: It's difficult to describe harvestmen without making
comparisons to spiders. Harvestmen do look like spiders. They have eight
legs, two palps, and like spiders they are carnivorous, but the similarities end there.
Harvestmen don't spin webs and they don't produce venom.
 If
you look at the main body at the centre of all those dangly legs you'll notice
that it's all one piece.
Spiders have two parts to their bodies - a cephalothorax (head and thorax) and
the abdomen. In the harvestmen these two parts are fused together as one.
These creatures are known as 'opiliones', and there are over twenty different
species living in the U.K. Most of them are only active at night.
Many have a bump on top of the head which houses their two eyes. This is called
an 'ocularium'.
Their second pair of legs is slightly longer than the other three pairs. These
legs are used as sensory organs to feel their surroundings. When you see them
walking these legs are constantly in motion, tapping all around, in a similar
fashion to a blind person using a stick.
When attacked, harvestmen are able to shed a leg as a defensive trick. Even
after the leg becomes detached from the body it continues to jump and flick
about. This distracts the predator while the harvestman makes its escape. They
are able to shed up to four legs in this way, but they need to retain at least
one of the sensory legs to survive.
UK Safari Creepy-Crawlies Section
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