Daddy Long Legs
Some Facts About Spiders
A lot of people fear spiders because some of them are poisonous. Other people fear the thought of being bitten. Let’s explore spiders in general and give you some facts about common spiders. Though spiders have simple eyes, they usually are not well developed. Instead, spiders use vibrations, which they can sense on the surface of their web. The tiny bristles distributed all over a spider’s body surface, are actually sensitive tactile receptors. These bristles are sensitive to a variety of stimuli including touch, vibration, and airflow.
Spiders are arthropods, so their skeletal system of their body is the outermost layer. The hard exoskeleton helps the spider maintain moisture and not dry out. The bristles are not hair, but actually part of their exoskeleton.
The word spider is from an Old English verb spinnan, meaning “to spin.” Web weavers use the tiny claws at the base of each leg, in addition to their notched hairs, to walk on their webs without sticking to them.
Spiders digest their food outside their body. After the prey is captured, spiders release digestive enzymes from their intestinal tract and cover the insect. These enzymes break down the body, which allows the spider suck up the liquid prey.
The feared tarantula isn’t poisonous. A tarantula’s bite can be painful, but it isn’t any more dangerous than a bee sting.
A Daddy-long-legs isn’t a spider, though it looks a lot like one. It doesn’t have a waist between its front body part and its abdomen. Its legs are longer and thinner than a spider’s, and it carries its body hung low.
Under a spider’s abdomen, near the rear, are tiny stubs called spinnerets. The spider uses its legs to pull liquid silk made in its abdomen from the spinnerets. The silk hardens as it stretches. Since silk is made out of protein, a spider eats the used silk of an old web before spinning a new one.
Not all spiders spin webs, but many use silk in other ways. Some protect their eggs in silken egg sacs. The Wolf Spider carries her egg sac attached to her spinnerets. Many tarantulas line their burrows with silk. Some trap-door spiders make silken lids for their burrows.
On an American one-dollar bill, there is an owl in the upper left-hand corner of the “1″ encased in the “shield” and a spider hidden in the front upper right-hand corner. Most spiders belong to the orb weaver spider family, Family Aranidae. This is pronounced “A Rainy Day.”
A strand from the web of a golden spider is as strong as a steel wire of the same size.
In the 1960s, animal behavior researchers studied the effects of various substances on spiders. When spiders were fed flies that had been injected with caffeine, they spun very “nervous” webs. When spiders ate flies injected with LSD, they spun webs with wild, abstract patterns. Spiders that were given sedatives fell asleep before completing their webs.
There is a group of spiders that lives between the low and high watermark along the ocean shores, and when they sense the tide coming in, they retreat to a tiny coral cave or crevice and weave a tight silken door across the entrance. The water comes higher and higher, covering the spider’s little retreat but not flooding it. Hours later, when the tide drops, the spider comes out of its watertight hideaway and goes about its business.
Another spider, called the water-spider, spends most of its life underwater even though it needs to breathe air. Even when newly hatched, it can surround its body with a film of air and can dive and swim for long periods of time.
About the Author
To read about school phobia and weird phobias, visit the Phobia List site.
Mass of Daddy Long Legs in a Tree
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Daddy long legs spider, SEM Photo Mugs Daddy long legs spider. Coloured scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of a daddy long legs, showing its characteristic long legs. Its eight eyes (red) can also be seen, above its mouth-parts (lower centre)….. |
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JC-419 CRANEFLY / Daddy-Long-Legs Larvae – x2 Photo Mugs JC-419 CRANEFLY / Daddy-Long-Legs Larvae – x2 Prionocera turcica John Clegg Please note that prints are for personal display purposes only and may not be reproduced in any way. contact details prints ardea tel and 44 (0) 20 8672 2067 …. |
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JD-5802 Daddy Long Legs Spider – female with egg sac Photo Mugs JD-5802 Daddy Long Legs Spider – female with egg sac Pholcus phalangioides John Daniels Please note that prints are for personal display purposes only and may not be reproduced in any way. contact details prints ardea tel and 44 (0) 20 8672 2067 …. |
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Daddy Long Legs $9.45 Lavish, dance-filled extravaganza starring Leslie Caron as a French orphan whose schooling is sponsored by an anonymous American millionaire, played by Fred Astaire. The millionaire’s secretary persuades her boss to visit the girl, and romance soon blooms. Terry Moore, Thelma Ritter co-star; songs include “Something’s Got to Give.” 126 min. Widescreen (Enhanced); Soundtracks: English Dolby Digital… |
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Daddy Long Legs Soundtrack of the world premier musical.Music and Lyrics by Paul Gordon…. |
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Daddy Long Legs $8.99 … |
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Daddy Long Legs [VHS] $4.99 Fred Astaire becomes both the benefactor and suitor of Leslie Caron in this charming story of a playboy who falls under the spell of a beautiful French orphan. While traveling through France, Jervis Pendleton III (Astaire) anonymously sponsors an eighteen year old girl named Julie (Caron), whom he sends to college in America. Two years later they finally meet face to face and start to fall in love… |
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Daddy Long-Legs [VHS] $22.49 In Daddy-Long-Legs, Mary Pickford plays an orphan, Jerusha (Judy) Abbott, abandoned as a baby in an alley and raised in a cruel orphanage. The scenes in the orphanage are extraordinary. Pickford, although in her late ’20s when the film was shot, is absolutely believable as a pigtailed 12-year-old; she’s the epitome of a child-woman, the essence of gamine. Protector and champion of her fellow orpha… |
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Daddy Long Legs [VHS] $29.98 … |
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