disgruntled pelican

Harvestmen, otherwise known as daddy long-legs (not to be confused with the cellar spiders of family Pholcidae, which are also described as daddy long-legs) bear a striking resemblance to spiders, but they actually belong to a separate order of arachnids known as Opiliones. These strange-looking creatures have eight legs, but only two eyes, and their body segments are largely fused together, giving the body a noticeably rounded, pill-like appearance.

Above: Metagryne bicolumnata, commonly known as the bunny harvestman

There are roughly 6,700 known species of harvestman, but researchers estimate that a total of more than 10,000 species may currently exist. Their physical features vary greatly from one species to the next; some harvestmen have crab-like claws, spikes, thorny legs, elongated bodies, colorful features, or cryptic markings. Most of them are equipped with long, spindly legs, but there are some that have shorter, stockier limbs instead.

Above: Megabunus diadema and two unidentified species from family Sclerosomatidae

Unlike spiders, harvestmen have an omnivorous diet that includes fungi, fruit pulp, seeds, pollen, lichen, algae, and invertebrate prey, and they are capable of consuming solid food, whereas spiders are typically carnivorous and feed only on fluids.

Above: a harvestman from genus Chasenella munching on a mushroom-cap

As this article explains:

Harvestmen consume mushrooms, fruit pulp, seeds, and seed appendages more frequently than spiders probably because they are “solid food feeders," which means they can ingest solid tissues by biting off small pieces. In turn, spiders are “fluid feeders” and feed on vegetable matter most frequently in the form of fluids (e.g. nectar, stigmatic exudate, plant sap, and honey dew) rather than fungal or plant tissues.

Above: genus Marthana

When given a choice between fresh fruit or invertebrate prey, some harvestmen actually prefer the fruit:

Schaus et al. carried out a feeding trial in which the Neotropical harvestman Erginulus clavotibialis was given a choice between fresh pineapple and live invertebrate prey. This harvestman demonstrated a distinct preference for fruit over the invertebrate prey.

Above: Dentobunus quadridentatus

Harvestmen are also much more social than spiders, and the males of some species have been known to engage in paternal care, which is a trait that rarely occurs among arthropods:

Single fatherhood is the rarest form of parental care in nature. Still, males are often the sole caretakers of progeny among a number of species of daddy long-legs, also known as harvestmen. In these species, fathers are exclusively responsible for guarding eggs that females lay on the undersides of leaves; the males remain on the eggs nearly constantly for months.

Above: several harvestman eggs and a young hatchling

When threatened, harvestmen often bob up and down erratically in an effort to confuse their attackers. They also have several other defense mechanisms, including pungent, foul-tasting secretions, the ability to "play dead," and autotomy, which is the ability to discard one or more of their own limbs in order to escape from predators.

Above: the photo at the top shows an unidentified harvestman from family Cosmetidae, while the photo on the bottom shows a species from genus Gnomulus

Harvestmen are completely harmless to humans. Their mouthparts are far too small to penetrate human skin, and contrary to popular belief, they do not have the "world's deadliest venom" -- in fact, they don't produce any venom at all.

Above: genus Obidosus

Sources & More Info:

BioOne: Fungus and Fruit Consumption by Harvestmen and Spiders: the Vegetarian Side of Two Predominantly Predaceous Arachnid Groups

Laboratory of Arthropod Behavior and Evolution: Harvestmen

Argo Biology: Citizen Science Reveals How Devoted Harvestman Dads Evolved Again and Again

NBC: Daddy Long-Legs Paternal Care Pays off in Longer Life, More Sex

PLOS One: Paternal Care Decreases Foraging Activity, but Does Not Impose Survival Costs to Caring Males in a Neotropical Arachnid

Gulo in Nature: Are Daddy Long-Legs Venemous?

ICE killed another person in maine today, just days after the murder of lorenzo salgado araujo in houston

the maine immigrants rights coalition has released a statement confirming he was a 26 year old columbian man who was authorized to work in the US and had a valid social security number

Bears Ears National Monument

Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

[UPDATE: trump did signed two executive orders this afternoon severely downsizing the two national monuments, just as he did during his first term. From the latest New York Times story:'

President Trump on Monday reduced the size of two national monuments in Utah by nearly 3 million acres, teeing up a legal battle over whether presidents have the power to shrink such sites in the first place.

Mr. Trump signed two executive orders to sharply cut the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments.

Excerpt from this story from the Center for Western Priorities:

An attack on Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments is reportedly scheduled to happen today [July 13, 2026] at 4:30 pm ET behind closed doors at the White House, according to sources cited in news stories out of Utah.

President Donald Trump’s public calendar lists the 4:30 pm Oval Office event only as “sign an executive order,” with no mention of Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante, or the roughly two million acres of protected public land on the chopping block. The signing is marked as closed to press, and the White House has no press briefings scheduled today.

The Center for Western Priorities released the following statement from Executive Director Aaron Weiss: 

“Planning this attack behind closed doors and providing no notice to the press, the five Bears Ears Tribes, or the public shows the administration knows it’s on the wrong side of history.

“When Trump tried to shrink Bears Ears and Grand Staircase in 2017, he flew to Salt Lake City and announced it from the state capitol in front of Utah politicians. This time, the president wants as few cameras in the room as possible. The five Tribes of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition and the American people will learn what happened to their land from a press release.”

Public opinion: When the first Trump administration asked the public in 2017, it received 2.8 million comments, 98 percent of them in support of keeping national monuments in place. A 2024 poll conducted on behalf of the Grand Canyon Trust found 71 percent of Utah voters support keeping Bears Ears as a national monument and 74 percent support keeping Grand Staircase-Escalante, including majorities of Republicans. Three-quarters of Utah voters support presidents’ authority to protect public lands as national monuments. Across the West, Colorado College’s 2025 Conservation in the West poll found that 89 percent of Western voters, including 83 percent of Republicans, believe national monument designations made over the past decade should be kept in place.

as someone who lived in this place longer than anywhere else in my adult life, this land is cherished, needed, and used by the people who live and work on it. it full of rare and endemic plants, wildlife, and geologic phenomenon that exist only here or on mars. this was done in secret after a vote to shrink the monuments failed to meet the deadline set for it, killing the bill, and is unpopular, immoral, and illegal. they want to log it for woodchips (we do not have great tracks of loggable land- it is pinion pine and juniper, which are not good trees for logging, on top many of them being 150-300+ years old) and mine it for coal, natural gas, and uranium. they would like to put cattle on it to graze it, which is Literally already allowed and happening, but there are precious few areas where there is anything to graze or water to drink, and the cows are devastating the landscape and killing our native plant populations.

Please care about grand staircase escalante and bears ears- this land is precious and needs to be conserved for the use and enjoyment of generations of people, animals, and plants to come.

(nodding)

"Including the University of Notre Dame"

Lesser Nighthawk (Chordeiles acutipennis), mother and chicks, family Caprimulgidae, order Caprimulgiformes, Arizona, USA

What prevents you from donating if you are able to do so?

Is it because you don’t trust me? Or because you think I am a fraud? Or because what we are living through in Gaza has become, for the world, something ordinary that no longer deserves attention?

My family’s fate should not be decided by silence.

I never chose to ask for help or create a fundraising campaign. This was never something I would have accepted for myself. But the war has taken everything from us and left me with the responsibility of caring for my children, leaving me with no other choice.

The founders of Jane, an underground network in Chicago, US that assisted people in getting abortions. From the left moving right: Martha Scott, Jeanne Galatzer-Levy, Abby Parisers, Sheila Smith and Madeline Schwenk.

Martha Scott was 19 in 1965, when her friend's sister became pregnant and Scott helped her find a doctor to perform an abortion. The group connected individuals seeking abortions with doctors, and later, performed abortions themselves. Their clients were informed they were not doctors, but doing abortions themselves allowed them to keep costs low. They made people aware of the services through signs with slogans like "'Pregnant? Don't Want to Be? Call Jane." The group operated for seven years and performed an estimated 11,000 abortions; no deaths were ever reported.

Quote from Scott: "You're messing around inside somebody else's body. It's not necessarily given that you won't do harm. It wasn't perfect, by any means. But we were dealing with women who really didn't have other options."

Quote from Galatzer-Levy: "I hadn't had so much as a speeding ticket [when I joined]. But abortion really was the front line, it was where women were dying."