Day 4: Mondays in June will become Close Up Mondays. Where I pick an insect, mammal, bird or amphibian and get up close and intimate.
Today’s Close Up is with the cellar spider, (pholcidae), most commonly (or incorrectly named) daddy long legs. I found this little guy while vaccuming the dinning room. He was proudly sitting on a web in a dark corner of the room.
Cellar spiders are part of a sub family of arachnids called Araneomorphae which mean they have fangs that cross in a pinching mechanism! There are around 1,500 different species in this family and are found all over the world except Antarctica.
They are fragile looking arachnids, with a small body of 2-10mm in length, with legs 50mm long. TarantulaDan‘s video informs that they predate on other spiders webs, even killing the original inhabitant by vibrating and mimicking trapped prey! Who would have guessed that such a delicate looking spider could be a web stealer! Therefore their diet consists of mainly other spiders and their offspring.
They are harmless to humans.
Needless to say the spider in question was captured in a glass and released into the yarden.
What are your thoughts on spiders such as the cellar spider?
Thanks for reading, and stay wild!
Christine x
Christine Lucas 
Last week there was one in the bathroom with me while I bathed. I spent a long time soaking and watching him climb the tiles only to tumbe back a bit. I decided to get out before he joined me and drowned. By the time I was dry he had vanished.
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They do have a strange gait. 🙂
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Yes, and there seemed to be no pattern as to which legs he moved first. He also seemed to put his legs to where I imagined his mouth was, and sort of lick them, I wondered if spiders had some sort of sticky stuff they apply to their legs.
It was quite a long soak I took as you can tell!
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Ohhh your brave. I am pretty creeped out by spiders, though Daddy Long Legs ( prefer that name, I think) tend to scare me less than say a House spider. X
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I am trying to step out of my comfort zone when it comes to spiders. I am getting better and its all about getting to know them. 🙂
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Good for you. I am such a scaredy cat! I did photograph a green spider at the wknd ( see latest post) , we think it is a cucumber spider? But not sure. Green spiders also seem less scary than black ones! X
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I’ll go and have a look at your blog. That’s the second time today I’ve heard about cucumber spiders 🙂 x
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I don’t mind spiders – I would never kill one and I always save them when there’s a need to (like any other creature). There’s such a wide variety of them too, always interesting to spot them. I’m the designated spider catcher at school, the one others call for if there’s a spider and rather than run screaming like others do, I make a point of removing spiders by hand in front of the children as a small way of demonstrating that there’s no need to fear them!
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David is the spider catcher in our house, but I never hurt them either. I am getting more comfortable with them. Well done with teaching the children to not be scared of them. Its an irrational fear that I feel is learned from adults when children. Well my fear of them stemmed from an aunt who was scared of spiders and overtime I acted just like her! Getting better each day 🙂
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I’ve just seen your comment in which you asked about photo an hour.. It’s the 16th June. I always go to twitter and just search #photoanhour to discover the date as it never seems to appear anywhere else – I’m glad you asked as I’d completely forgotten about it so probably would have missed it myself!
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Thanks for that Louise 🙂 x
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