page_title: Opiliones
hierarchical_section_title: Opiliones
caption_attribution_description: Harvestman in a flower pod. Macro photo, taken with a Canon G3 using an inverse mounted lens.
context_page_description: Harvestmen are eight-legged arachnids. Even though they belong to the arachnid family, harvestmen are not spiders. They are in the order Opiliones or Phalangids.
  More than 6,400 species of harvestmen have been discovered, although the real number of extant species may be more than 10,000. Well-preserved fossils have been found in the 400-million year old Rhynie cherts of Scotland. The samples found look surprisingly modern. Apparently, the basic structure of the harvestmen has not changed much since then.
  In some places, harvestmen are known by the name "daddy longlegs", but this name is also used for two other unrelated arthropods: the crane fly and the cellar spider.
  Many species are omnivores, they eat anything they can find. Most of the time this is small insects, and some plants and fungi. Some are scavengers.
  Harvestmen are not dangerous to humans. None of the described species has poison glands. They are not "true" spiders even though they look like spiders in many ways. For example, harvestmen have no venom or silk glands; spiders have these.
context_section_description: Harvestmen are eight-legged arachnids. Even though they belong to the arachnid family, harvestmen are not spiders. They are in the order Opiliones or Phalangids.
  More than 6,400 species of harvestmen have been discovered, although the real number of extant species may be more than 10,000. Well-preserved fossils have been found in the 400-million year old Rhynie cherts of Scotland. The samples found look surprisingly modern. Apparently, the basic structure of the harvestmen has not changed much since then.
  In some places, harvestmen are known by the name "daddy longlegs", but this name is also used for two other unrelated arthropods: the crane fly (Tipulidae) and the cellar spider (Pholcidae).
  Many species are omnivores, they eat anything they can find. Most of the time this is small insects, and some plants and fungi. Some are scavengers.
  Harvestmen are not dangerous to humans. None of the described species has poison glands. They are not "true" spiders even though they look like spiders in many ways.  For example, harvestmen have no venom or silk glands; spiders have these.
caption: A harvestman (a male Phalangium opilio), showing the almost fused arrangement of abdomen and cephalothorax that distinguishes these arachnids from spiders.
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