What is a daddy long legger?

Answer 1

This gets confusing because the name "daddy long-legs" is spelled a variety of ways, and is applied to different, unrelated animals.

Here in the U.S., a "daddy long legs" usually means an arachnid properly called a "harvestman," in the order Opiliones. They look like Spiders, but have only one body segment instead of the two that spiders have. Also, harvestmen are not venomous like most spiders are.

"Daddy long legs" is also frequently misapplied to long-legged spiders properly called "cellar spiders" in the family Pholcidae. Pholcids spin webs, whereas harvestmen, which are not spiders, do not spin webs.

Lastly, in the United Kingdom, "daddy long legs" usually means crane flies in the family Tipulidae. Crane flies look like enormous mosquitoes, but crane flies do not bite.