This spider has taken residence in a corner of one of the rooms, I’m not bothered by them but the web is getting a bit too big… can I just remove part of it to keep the size in check without causing harm to the spider?

    • @Oka@lemmy.ml
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      1911 months ago

      If it looks like a spider, and acts like a spider, and freaks me out like a spider, it’s close enough

      • @o_oli@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        In the UK what we call a daddy longlegs has wings and flies (a crane fly I think). Obviously a very widely used name for things with a small body and a bunch of long legs haha

          • @o_oli@lemmy.world
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            111 months ago

            Can’t tell if you are being serious or pulling my leg with that but I love it haha. I mean it’s a perfect way to distinguish because over here we have no good way to call the spiders other than ‘one of those long leg small body kinda spiders’ which is a terrible name.

            • emmanuel_car
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              211 months ago

              Definitely not pulling your long leg, daddy, it’s how we distinguish between the long legged things with wings and the long legged things without

      • cupcake_of_DOOM
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        511 months ago

        Cellar spiders/ daddy long legs have become catch-all terms for any spider or pseudo spider with tiny body and long legs. Anyway, webs get disturbed all the time in nature. The spider just rebuilds. As long as you don’s bump in to them, they will just repair the web. If the web needs repair too often, then the spider will move elsewhere.

        • @bec@lemmy.mlOP
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          111 months ago

          I see, kinda lazy nomenclature, but I guess with all the different kinds of spiders, at some point you run out of names ahah thanks for the info! I hope they stay because they’ve been eating good, and I appreciate the reduced amount of insects

          • Glowing Lantern
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            311 months ago

            In German, cellar spiders are called “Große Zitterspinne” (Great Trembling Spider), due to its defensive mechanism. There’s a whole family of Zitterspinnen. Crane flies are called “Schnake” (no direct translation, large mosquito). There are regional variations, however, where both are also referred to as daddy long legs.

    • Narrrz
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      511 months ago

      over here (NZ) what we call daddy long legs are, I believe, known as cellar spiders in other places.

      • livus
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        311 months ago

        Yes, that’s right. Fun fact: they eat whitetail spiders.

        • Narrrz
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          211 months ago

          oh, that’s cool! I thought it was the other way around.

          • livus
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            11 months ago

            I used to think so too! To be fair the whitetails want to eat the daddy longlegs, but they don’t have the reach advantage.

            There are some videos on youtube eg this one.

            Can’t find it right now but somewhere there’s a 3 part one showing how the daddy longlegs deliberately lures the whitetail to try to come and eat it, but it’s a trap.