Sherrie Leonard, age 11, of Wichita, Kansas, for her question:

Does a daddy longlegs have a mouth?

Old skinny legs has a mouth, but he does not have what scientists rate as a pair of true jaws. His mouth has several pairs of small appendages that serve as tools for eating and other duties. The third segment has a pair of tiny prongs called cheliceras that work together like a handy pair of pincers. He uses them to cope with the insects on his menu, which may be alive or dead. The cunning segments of his mouth also enable him to consume quantities of plant juices.

Some people think that daddy longlegs, alias the harvester, is an insect. In order to qualify as an insect, a creature must have six walking legs and a body with three sections    the head, thorax and abdomen. The daddy longlegs does not qualify because he has eight long skinny legs. What's more, his body has only two sections. His head and thorax are welded together in the first section, his plump round abdomen forms the second section. He shares these features with his spidery cousins, the arachnids. However, the long legged harvester cannot spin a silken, spidery web.