BY KIERAN LINDSEY, PhD
Daddy longlegs are the jazz cats of the arachnid world!
This realization came to me as I watched a single backlit note bebop across the asphalt path in front of me. A soundtrack of jazz piano greats immediately began to play in my head — Willie “The Lion” Smith, Thomas “Fats” Waller, Art Tatum, Thelonious Monk, and Dave Brubeck, to name but a few. Chill dudes whose spider-like fingers strode, slid, bounced, and stomped across the keys.
Jazz has evolved and diverged from it’s start in the late 19th century as ragtime and Dixieland into a genre so diverse it can be difficult to define, or even to list all the variations: Swing, Cool, West Coast, Modal, Free, Fusion, Funk, Cu-Bop, Post-Bop, etc.
The Harvestmen, as Daddy Longlegs are also known (that even sounds like a 1950s jazz band, doesn’t it?) have an even longer and more impressive history. They’re a vast, improvisational set that spans millions of years and many taxonomic octaves, with over 6,500 named species worldwide (experts estimate there may actually be more than 10,000). And while not all the players in this big band have long legs, the ones who hangout in my neighborhood— Eastern Harvestmen (Leiobunum vittatum)— are definitely long-stemmed.
These invertebrate daddy-o’s are arachnids but they are NOT spiders; they’re more closely related to mites and scorpions. Harvestmen don’t have a spider’s tiny waist, or venom, or silk (so no webs), and they have only two eyes instead of eight.
Jazz musicians need to maintain their instruments to get the best sound; piano hammers need to be voiced, strings tuned, reeds moistened, and valves lubricated. Daddy Longlegs are similarly serious about the tools of their trade, cleaning each leg after a meal by threading them through the pincers by their mouths.
Harvestmen are a gregarious lot who periodically congregate in the hundreds or even thousands. Scientists have suggested these spontaneous jam sessions might occur in response to climatic conditions or provide some protection against predators… but it’s pretty clear they aren’t making music (that can be detected by the human ear, anyway).
These members of Order Opiliones are exceptional even among arachnids. They can swallow small pieces of solid food, whereas their cousins are limited to a liquid diet. Conversely, Daddy Longlegs sip oxygen through their legs into a trachea, while other arachnids respire through a gas exchange organ called a book lung.
Like jazz, Daddy Longlegs are both familiar and mysterious. Little research has been done on these species… and who can say why? Maybe they’re a bit too avant-garde to have a large fan base among researchers.
