“We’re describing new ones all the time,” Clouse said. There might be as many as 10,000 species of daddy longlegs, with 6000 to 7000 currently described. LeoMercon // iStock via Getty Images Plus Daddy longlegs come in many different varieties.Ī Gonyleptidae harvestman in Brazil. we have some tiny ones in the leaf litter that the average person never sees.” 6. Different regions of the world have their own particular daddy longlegs, and some of the most common ones are small and out of sight in the leaf litter on the forest floor. “They are most diverse in tropical areas, where the moist climate and thick foliage allow them to live in lots of places. “They’re usually found in humid areas, such as under rocks, in leaf litter, and inside caves,” Clouse said. These arachnids can be found on every continent but Antarctica. In Europe, terms like ‘harvestmen’ and ‘shepherd spiders’-and even their scientific name, Opiliones-refer to them as being associated with good pasture, harvest season, or perhaps even their resemblance to shepherds on stilts or the shape of a scythe.” 5. "So, the large, short-legged forms in South America are often referred to by their pungent odors. ![]() “In other regions, their common names reflect different attributes found in the species common to those areas," Clouse said. But there are different names for them around the world. In North America, the reason for at least part of their name is pretty obvious-the species we see most frequently have very long, thin legs. To put this in perspective, this is about 200 million years before dinosaurs appeared, which were only around for about 165 million years.” 4. It is believed daddy longlegs split off from scorpions, which were becoming terrestrial about 435 million years ago. “This fossil actually looks a lot like the long-legged species we see today. “We know from a very well preserved fossil of a daddy longlegs from Scotland that they are at least 400 million years old,” Clouse said. And, if that's not confusing enough, there's another creature that sometimes goes by the name daddy longlegs: The crane fly. According to Clouse, the rumor might have gotten started during “the retelling by an American tabloid of a study in Australia on the venom of a daddy longlegs there the problem is that in Australia, ‘daddy longlegs’ refers to a type of spider,” also known as the cellar spider ( Pholcus phalangioides). They don't even have fangs, and they can't make venom, either. That thing you heard at summer camp about daddy longlegs being the most poisonous creature in the world, but with fangs too weak to bite you? Not true. ![]() randimal // iStock via Getty Images Plus But if you are looking for a lightweight, shallow girl coming-of-age story, that's what you'll get.A cellar spider (Pholcus phalangioides). ![]() The artwork is fairly unsophisticated (even for the time it was produced, forty years ago), and the animation is similarly unimpressive. There are hints of a love rivalry that are never fleshed out, and her simple life in the orphanage is barely a few minutes at the start. Given that this is under an hour long, and it is adapting a longer literary work, of course you can tell there are parts that are cut out, and not covered in any detail. pretty saccharine in parts, as she experiences the life of a high-society girl, coming from her humble origins. At its heart, it's a "feel-good" story about a young girl who has a happy college life without many conflicts and ends up living happily ever after. ![]() To be honest, I was completely unfamiliar with the literary work, so I was going in to this short movie as if it was its own stand-alone work. Based on a novel written a hundred years ago, about a young orphan girl who gets the chance to go to college by a mysterious benefactor, with the stipulation that she write him at least one letter each month.
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