Doug Greenman, age 13, of Colville, Washington, for his question:
What does a daddy longlegs spider eat?
We prefers to eat meat, which he catches alive alive o. He also eats fresh vegetation, so as the leaves are tender and juicy. Sometimes he ignores fresh food and feasts on the decaying plant and animal material to be found in a pile of garbage. Creatures that eat both meat and vegetables are omnivores. The daddy longlegs is certainly omniverous, plus a bit of a scavenger. He also needs a daily ration of drinking. water.
This is the time of year when the daddy longlegs may be seen striding through fields and gardens, up the trees, over the barn and around the trash cans. Actually, he goes around all summer feasting as he grew to his full size. We just didn't notice him when he was smalller. Now we can hardly miss him..
His small roundish body is supported on eight very, very long legs that look too shinny to be safe. Some people mistake him for an insect, but he is a second cousin of the spiders. However, he does not spin webs and, unlike the spiders, he does not paralyze his victims with a poisonous bite. And he does not have a xaist, as the spiders do.
Striding through the bushes., he pounces on mites anal smallish insects and now and then lie catches a spider. Tile stabs his victims with powerful jaws and sucks out the juices. meaty snacks of this sort are his favorite food. When this is scarce, he sucks the juices fro ai tender leaves. lie also enjoys a meal or two from a pile of garbage, especially when the ma¬terial has decomposed to the soupy stage.
After a long meal., the daddy longlegs strides off in search of water. If this is scarce, his body gets stiff and he finds it hard to move with his usual speed. When he finds water just in time, lie revives almost at once.
Before the cold weather sets in, the female daddy long legs lays batches of tiny leaves in the soil or perhaps in some crevice in the bark of a tree. Usually the adults do not survive the winter and the young hatch in the summer.
They are miniature copies of their parents and famished for scraps of anything edible. As they grow, every ten days or so they shed their skins for larger ones. After seven or eight colts, a young daddy longlegs is ready to emerge as an adult. The old skin splits to allow the body to escape, then the little creature inches his long legs out of their old stockings.
The daddy longlegs looks like a stranger to our planet and people tend to tell tall tales about strange looking animals. In Europe, they predict a good harvest when there are lots of these longlegged creatures around. This is why some folks call them harvesters or harvestmen. Another tall tale claims that a daddy longlegs can help a boy to find his dog just by pointing one of his long legs in the right direction.