Heather Barton, of Fredericton, N.B., Canada, for her question:

HOW COME THE DADDY LONGLEGS DOES NOT SPIN A WEB?

The multitude of spiders and spider like creatures that crawl, hop or otherwise make their way about belong to a division of the animal kingdom called Arachnida. This group is divided into a number of smaller groups. The scorpions have their separate division as do the spiders, ticks and mites and other spidery kin. Daddy longlegs, or harvestmen  as they are also called  have their special niche on the family tree of spiderdom in a group called Phalangida. This clan has some 3,200 species.

Daddy longlegs are very common spider like animals found throughout the world. Like its relative the spider, the daddy longlegs has four pair of legs and an oval body. It differs from the spider in that it does not spin a web and has no waist between its cephalothorax and abdomen. Its legs are unusually long and stilt like and are perfectly suited for moving about on the leaves of trees and shrubs. Its varied diet consists of small insects, caught alive or found dead, and plant juices. Even though daddy longlegs lacks the internal plumbing necessary for web spinning, it gets along quite nicely. Anyway, who needs a web to trap plants?