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Sticker of Daddy long-legs spider
Bug card No. 0379 of 1,500

Daddy long-legs spider

Pholcus phalangioides
Eats: Other bugs and small animalsSpidersHouses and farms8 legsNot an insect, but a bug cousin

The daddy long-legs spider has a tiny pale body and eight super long, thin legs. Its legs are five or six times longer than its body. It likes to hang upside down on ceilings, in corners of rooms, garages and cellars.

Fun fact: spiders are not insects. Insects have six legs, spiders have eight. Everyone calls them bugs anyway!
Lives in
Almost everywhere in the world, mostly inside warm houses and cellars
Length
0.6 to 1 cm (0.24 to 0.39 in)
Top speed
about 1.2 km/h (0.75 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
What does it eat?
That is why many people are happy to have it at home.
For real!Photo of Daddy long-legs spider
Picture by Olei. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Daddy long-legs spider about 1 cm long (0.39 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)
small enough to sit on your fingernailas long as 1.5 grains of rice in a rowcould run across a dinner table in 3 secondsmoves 33 times its own body length every second

How big is Daddy long-legs spider compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Its body is so thin you can almost see through it.

2

It has eight eyes: two small dark ones at the front and six bigger ones behind them.

3

It does not like the cold, so it lives inside warm buildings. People helped it travel all around the world.

4

A young spider takes about a year to grow up, and then it can live two more years or even longer.

5

Scientists think its silk might one day be useful in medicine.

you asked

Most asked questions about Daddy long-legs spider

?How big is a daddy long-legs spider?

Its body is only about 6 to 10 millimetres long, but its legs are five or six times longer.

?Is a daddy long-legs a spider?

This one is a real spider. But people also use the name daddy long-legs for harvestmen and crane flies, which are different animals.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Pholcus phalangioides
Named by
FΓΌssli, 1775
Group
Spiders
Family
Pholcidae
Classification
Arachnida > Araneae > Pholcidae
Lives on
Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Australia and Oceania
Also known as
Cosmopolitan cellar spider, Long-bodied cellar spider

Where the facts come from

  1. Pholcus phalangioides (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by Olei. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.

More from the same group: Spiders

Also at home here: Houses and farms