Talk:Opiliones

message: Who did name daddy long legs? How does daddy long legs make a life? This is not like grasshopping... I don't like daddy long legs.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.175.141.240 (talk) 05:26, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I like them a lot. But this is not a discussion forum. David Spector (talk) 23:10, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Who did name you?

message: The article states in the Etymology section: "The Swedish naturalist, Karl Sundevall, first used the term Opiliones in 1833, and derived from the Latin 'opilio', meaning 'sheep-master' or 'shepherd', although the sense of the allusion is unclear." (Harvestmen - Glauco Machado, Gonzalo Giribet).
While it is useful to know the Latin derivation, the inclusion of the statement "although the sense of the allusion is unclear" shows that the author(s) of that statement have never taken the time to observe a true shepherd in action (one with only a staff and no work dogs to assist), else the allusion would be obvious.
I suggest either removal of the "although the sense of the allusion is unclear" statement, or an additional quote from some source that has better insight.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.212.45.234 (talk) 23:55, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Find a source that can put two and two together? 

message: What would be really helpful is if it mentioned somewhere where on earth these things are found...
I live in northeast Florida and the  longlegs used to be very common. During the summer there were numerous individuals or small groups clustered on shady walls.They never seemed to be doing anything at all. This was 20-25 years ago and I cannot recollect the last time I encountered one, but I saw no mention of this geographical  area in the "Endangered" section.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.92.79.239 (talk) 16:36, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Location

message: This article failed the GA noms due to lack of references. Tarret 21:14, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: GA Failed

message: What is the singular of Opiliones? Is it Opilione? Or Opiliones?
Is the name Opilionid valid? IronChris  |  (talk) 02:26, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What is the singular of harvestmen? Is it Harvestman? Billlion 22:43, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

text: I don't find any of these Opilion~ forms in the AHD or in my OED (1985). A Google ngram search yields one single Opilion and no occurrence of Opilione. Eric talk 17:26, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: In Latin, opiliones is the nominative plural of opilio, so in that language, the singular is opilio. What should be used in English is another matter. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:06, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  FYI, see above. Eric talk 12:10, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't care, as long as you don't use "Opiliones" as a singular. Correctrix (talk) 02:52, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm no bug science expert, but I think English employs the term as both singular and plural, depending on context. Opiliones is an order, not are. I would change the first sentence to read "Opiliones...is an order of arachnids...", but I sometimes have trouble convincing other Wikipedians that reference works should put entry terms in the singular. Eric talk 13:21, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
replies: text:  sure, but that's a different issue. When "Opiliones" is used as the name of the order then it can be treated as either singular or plural, depending on the context. Some sources write "Opiliones is an order", some "The Opiliones are an order" – both are found in the literature and neither is right or wrong. But we were discussing the word to use for one or more animals, not the order. So where you might write "The picture shows a harvestman/two harvestmen", if you wanted to use a more 'technical', less ENGVAR-specific term, would you write "an opilionid/two opilionids" or "an opilione/two opiliones"? I find the second very odd, but it is definitely in use if you do a Google search. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:16, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi - I take your point, though I take the argumentum ad googlum portion with a grain of salt. I never saw the s at the end of Opiliones as indicating a plural until I read your above post last year. I have yet to encounter the need to come up with a singular in English, but if I did, I'd go with the singular you provided last October. For some reason, I would tend to avoid the construction "...are an..." in our intro sentence. It looks a bit awkward to me, and I would think replacing the are with comprise or make up would make it read better. Eric talk 21:58, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, the standard opening in our articles about taxa whose Latin names are plural in Latin appears to be either of the forms I suggested, i.e. "X is a RANK" or "The X are a RANK" (note the inclusion of "the"). A quick survey suggests to me that for animals the first is somewhat more common (e.g. Solifugae, Schizomida, Thelyphonida, Branchiopoda, Remipedia) although there are many with the second (e.g. Entognatha, Dicondylia, Pterygota). I haven't yet found any with "comprise(s)". Peter coxhead (talk) 22:24, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Singular? 

message: The myth mentioned was actually tested by the MythBusters of the Discovery Channel.  They found that the venom of daddy long legs is not more lethal than that of a Black Widow spider.  Second, the fangs are long enough to pierce the skin.  Third, actual intentional infliction of multiple bites caused no significant side effects for a human.
BBC has an interesting article on & photo of one of these in amber.  Appartently, it will be pretty important to science.
:Actually, the MythBusters tested the Daddy Longlegs spider, not the Harvestmen. 68.48.174.136 04:11, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mythbusters 

message: Regarding:
Because they are a ubiquitous order, but species are often restricted to small regions due to their low dispersal rate,[citation needed] they are good models for biogeographic studies.[dubious – discuss]
I can guess at what the person who wrote this meant to say, but am putting this in discussion to make sure.
My guess is: "This order exists in all environments on the planet, but in isolated populations. Therefore, they are good models for biogeographical studies."
Given that someone put up the citation and dubious tags, I'm not even sure that's all true. I'm not an expert on these arachnids. Someone who is may want to either update the wording to make sense in a fashion similar to my example or remove that statement all together. Mjatucla (talk) 03:53, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Grammar & Details 

message: Would someone kindly discuss the toxicity of harvestmen when ingested by humans or animals? Thank you. 71.87.170.182 (talk) 16:48, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm assuming since they have no venom they're quite non-toxic besides any parasites that may be living inside of them. 71.243.45.34 (talk) 02:38, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Toxicity when ingested  

message: anyone else notice that they seem to always have seven legs, not the normal 8? Githyan (talk) 23:52, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I've noticed it, and I'm surprised it is not included. Sometimes six. I suspect that they can lose their legs easily, such as if one gets caught in a wall crack. I don't really know. Do the legs regenerate? Don't know that either. No experts around here, I guess. David Spector (talk) 23:16, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Opiliones undergo autotomy, which is a very common defense mechanism in many Arthropods and other animals such as lizards (that when stress lose their tail), starfish and spiders very commonly lose their legs when they molt. They are voluntarily amputating an appendage. However, not all species of Opiliones practice this mechanism. Sadly, unlike spiders that regenerate their legs with time, Opiliones do not. Which makes it very interesting how their locomotion and sensorial behavior adapts to that condition. Paecilaema (talk) 18:39, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: number of legs

message: Anyone care to tell me why the anatomy section merits its own wikisite as opposed to being described right here in the middle of the article on the critter? Aderksen (talk) 16:58, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  anatomy separated? 

message: Regarding this statement:
"In some places, harvestmen are known by the name "daddy longlegs" or "granddaddy longlegs", but this name is also used for two other unrelated arthropods: the crane fly (Tipulidae) and the cellar spider (Pholcidae)."
It is NOT the policy of Wikipedia to decide that, since the term "daddy long legs" has more than one meaning, this article should default to the position of using "harvestman" as the common term.
Rather, it is Wikipolicy to follow what reliable, mainstream sources in general say about the subject. Actually, a majority of the English-speaking world likely uses the term "daddy long legs" to refer to the "harvestman". As such, this "common" usage should be used, not deprecated, in the article as a major colloquial name. Let's not forget that the name "harvestman" is also "colloquial".
http://spiders.ucr.edu/daddylonglegs.html
69.15.219.71 (talk) 17:41, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: This seems reasonable.  Anybody want to move the article? J. D. Crutchfield | Talk 16:40, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: POV Disambiguation Issues

message: Much research has been done on harvestmen biogeography, to the point that many claim the order as a model 'system' of sorts for biogeographical studies. Thus, a section on this topic is highly warranted (and really should be in here regardless of how much their biogeography is studied). The biogeography chapter in "Harvestmen: The Biology of Opiliones" (Pinto-da-Rocha, Machado, and Giribet 2007) would be a good place to start for anyone willing to write this, although many important papers have been published in the last 6 years that should be taken into consideration.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lophiomys (talk • contribs) 23:46, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Biogeography 

message: I have seen harvestmen cluster together in groups of thousands (at least). It is extremely creepy, and will make an arachnophobe faint. Can someone say this in the "Behavior" section, and maybe add an image? TIA, Charizardmewtwo (talk) 19:18, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: There are many reasons to why this is. I can include them and the references for it. 165.134.214.135 (talk) 00:29, 3 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Social animal|Clustering]] 

message: Never heard of this term. If this is just a US name, the article should say so. I suspect this is another example of the common "all the world's America" WP attitude. --Ef80 (talk) 19:51, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know whether it's American or not, but it's the English name I've used all my life and I'm English, brought up in East Anglia. It may be regional in the UK. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:04, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: After investigation I think you're right. It's certainly not simply a US term. I stand corrected. --Ef80 (talk) 09:33, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Harvestmen 

message: The way some of the sentences are worded has me confused as to if harvestmen are or are not spiders. 67.212.45.191 (talk) 13:25, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Where in the articles are there sentences that ambiguously refer to harvestmen as spiders?  That, and you are aware that "arachnid" is not synonymous with "spider," right?--Mr Fink (talk) 14:22, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: However, it seems to be a common misconception that they are either spiders or closely related, so I've added a sentence to the lead section. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:30, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  The last few sentences of the first paragraph should now make it clear. Eric talk 19:34, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article is unclear 

message: The article is missing citations on many of the facts being presented. In addition, the article lacks much of the known information on harvestmen mating behavior and predatory avoidance which are very interesting facets of their biology. Wshoenberger (talk) 16:39, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Feel free to add referenced information, but please read a little about Wikipedia:Citation templates to better understand how to format the actual refs; that first attempt broke the entire References section.  --Junkyardsparkle (talk) 20:39, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I will add some additional information and references on their anti-predator behavior. Paecilaema (talk) 18:41, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Adding refs 

message: In this section, I will be talking about the general defenses they use and the known predators. Their mechanisms are mainly classified as primary and secondary defenses by Gnaspini and Hara, 2007. 
:It looks very good. I like how it is divided into primary and secondary defenses. What are diel habits? Maybe explain the definition. In the Bobbing section I would move the comma from after 'species' to after 'escape' in the first sentence. The second sentence in Retaliation is missing a subject (I think it's meant to say 'Laniatores'). In the Chemical section, the sentence after citation 58 starts with a lower case 'but', so maybe the first half of the sentence got deleted? Since the section about chemical defenses has the most information maybe it should be described first. メガヒロ (talk) 21:18, 4 April 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anti-predator defenses 

message: In this section, I will mention and explain the classified secondary defenses which are the mechanisms used when directly or indirectly encountered with a predator to ensure survival such as thanatosis (retraction of legs – what they might refer in the wiki article as “playing dead” –, fleeing, freezing, retaliation, stridulation, autotomy and chemical secretion. I will also include the references to multiple studies and their findings.
Paecilaema (talk) 04:59, 3 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Secondary Defenses 

message: The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:
* Harvestman Mouth.JPG
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 22:06, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion 

message: FYI.  I changed the article name Harvestman anatomy to Opiliones anatomy, to stay consistent this main articles name of Opiliones rather than Harvestman. --David Tornheim (talk) 12:04, 31 December 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Name change Harvestman anatomy to Opiliones anatomy