[HN Gopher] A daddy-longlegs possesses six eyes, including two v...
___________________________________________________________________
A daddy-longlegs possesses six eyes, including two vestigial pairs
Author : furcyd
Score : 92 points
Date : 2024-03-01 13:21 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| mikeyinternews wrote:
| Vestigial eyes not really "extra", but still cool.
| webdoodle wrote:
| I think it's foolhardy to assume they are vestigial. Did they
| test other spectrums such IR, UV, etc? Did they test other
| phenomenon such as muons? Evolution wouldn't have put something
| there if it didn't serve a function.
| feverdream wrote:
| Isn't that part of what it means to be vestigial? It used to
| serve a function, but it doesn't now.
| dwighttk wrote:
| Vestigial has often meant "we don't know/haven't identified
| what function this serves" ... yet.
| hammock wrote:
| Unfortunately. As with the appendix.
| Intralexical wrote:
| The famously "vestigial" human appendix actually serves
| as a seed vault for replenishing gut microbiota after a
| gut disaster, I hear.
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.md/NxIiF
| strken wrote:
| Note that even though Opiliones aren't spiders, Pholcidae - which
| are also commonly called daddy longlegs - definitely are. This
| article is about Opiliones.
| 13of40 wrote:
| Thanks for clearing that up for me. When I was a kid we had the
| bumbly non-spider ones in the garden, but now we've got the
| sinister spider ones in every corner of the basement and
| garage. I guess the leg thing is convergent evolution?
| dwringer wrote:
| Though I'm not a particularly big fan of them, the Pholcidae
| spiders are very nonintrusive, nonaggressive, nearly
| weightless and paper-thin, and do an excellent job eating
| venomous spiders and unwanted insects. I tend to leave them
| undisturbed in out-of-the-way corners when possible.
| bonton89 wrote:
| This is my policy as well. If one comes rappelling down on
| me in my basement I tend to just blow on them so they fly
| away elsewhere. Every one of them that eats earwigs can
| stay as far as I'm concerned.
| krylon wrote:
| I used to kill them mercilessly, until I saw like three
| "outdoor" spiders ending up as meals in their webs in my
| apartment within days of each other. I have since left them
| to their own devices. I am not a big fan of spiders, but
| these critters are really effective pest controls.
|
| FWIW, they tend to not rebuild webs in places where they
| got destroyed repeatedly, so if you can do that without
| killing the spider, it will likely move to a more quiet
| location. Their webs - I learned at the time - are not
| sticky, unlike most other spider species' webs, and they do
| not tear down and rebuild them, rather they extend them
| over time and happily take over abandoned webs.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Yep, these are friend-spiders, if you don't like spiders.
| Same as jumping spiders. They eat other spiders! What more
| could somebody want?
|
| These spiders have decided to live life with PvP mode on,
| very cool.
| cameronh90 wrote:
| Also note that in the UK, daddy long legs refers to Crane
| Flies, which is neither of those.
| davidmurdoch wrote:
| We have three species named daddy long legs? Why are humans
| like this?
| mistermann wrote:
| What kind of a name is that in the first place!!
| joshspankit wrote:
| This reminds me that gen alpha has a whole different
| experience here lol
| krylon wrote:
| They do have long legs compared to their body size, so
| the name is not entirely inaccurate. Unlike guinea pigs
| or elephant shrews.
| xnx wrote:
| "Naming things is hard" seems to be a universal truth.
| lebean wrote:
| DaddyLonglegsManager
| trav4225 wrote:
| Factory()
| tflol wrote:
| AbstractDaddyLongLegsConfigDispatcherServletInitializer
| groestl wrote:
| Composition is better than inheritance. So I refactored
| this into a ListConfigDispatcherServletInitializer which
| can accept a list of ConfigStrategies for dispatching.
|
| Added AbstractDaddyLongLegsConfigStrategy, to help with
| implementing concrete config strategies for
| DaddyLongLegs.
| authorfly wrote:
| Not only anthropoids...
|
| https://www.historyhit.com/the-extraordinary-daddy-long-
| legs...
| davidmurdoch wrote:
| Others have commented that in Britain the name refers to
| a fly, but this article about a railway in Great Britain
| makes it clear it was named after the spider. The
| devolution of language is fascinating.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| Not really. I've just read the article. The two terms
| seem to be just alternatives.
| Clamchop wrote:
| You're not going to believe it when I tell you about how we
| name people and places. ;)
| drivers99 wrote:
| That's why the scientific Latin names were created. The
| robin in North America (Turdus migratorius) was named after
| a similar looking one that settlers were familiar with in
| Europe (Erithacus rubecula) and there are many cases where
| similar namespace collisions for animals and plants occur
| in daily language.
| adrian_b wrote:
| Unfortunately also many of the scientific Latin names
| have been given rather carelessly.
|
| Linnaeus is one of the worst offenders. He has taken most
| of his names from classic Latin and Greek authors, like
| Pliny the Elder and Aristotle, but especially for the
| Greek names it appears that he has not actually read the
| original ancient books, or at least he has read them very
| superficially.
|
| The result is that a very large number of names of
| animals and plants given by Linnaeus have been applied to
| very different species than those for which they had been
| used traditionally.
|
| The genus of harvestmen Phalangium, which is the subject
| of this research is one of the animals misnamed by
| Linnaeus.
|
| Aristotle has used 2 words for naming spiders, one for
| the spiders that make webs ("arachnee") and the other was
| "phalangion". The description of the latter corresponds
| to a wolf spider (which is now named "Lycosa",
| scientifically).
|
| Instead of using "Phalangium" for wolf spiders, Linnaeus
| has wrongly applied it to harvestmen. There are no closer
| similarities between spiders and harvestmen than between
| spiders and any other arachnids, except that both spiders
| and harvestmen have relatively long legs for their
| bodies.
|
| When looking at harvestmen it is very easy to see that
| they are not spiders, because their abdomen is not
| separated from the thorax and they do not have the
| poisonous "fangs" characteristic for spiders.
|
| The ancestors of spiders and harvestmen were already
| separated during Silurian, at a time when the ancestors
| of humans and fish were not yet separated.
| pvaldes wrote:
| People are free to say opilion, tipula or spider. Is much
| easier to remember and write than daddysomething
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| The _C. elegans_ roundworm is one of the most important
| model organisms in biology. I have to specify "roundworm",
| because, well...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._elegans_(disambiguation)
| nervousvarun wrote:
| Not just the UK, there are parts of the southern US that
| refer to Crane Flies as DLLs (also "mosquito hawks" even
| though they don't prey on mosquitos). You also sometimes hear
| "Grand Daddy Longlegs".
|
| I can vouch for New Orleans at least as they are everywhere
| right now (there was a discussion on r/NewOrleans just a few
| days back about this very topic). One thing I learned in that
| discussion is the same person might call both of them DLLs.
| That seems impossibly illogical to me but it apparently
| happens.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| So basically you're living in DLL hell ;)
| jandrese wrote:
| Take your upvote and get out of here.
| woleium wrote:
| sigh.. this is HN, not reddit. I come here so i dont have
| to navigate this noise between signals
| adolph wrote:
| Bumper crop of mosquito hawks in Houston too. Maybe it was
| the mild winter?
| jrgoff wrote:
| Just to add to the common name list - I grew up in Alaska
| and we called the crane flies "mosquito eaters" there.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| Definitely learned the name "'skeeter eater" growing up,
| but I'm not sure whether that was a Virginian regionalism
| or my dad's eccentricity.
| dynisor wrote:
| Were also called mosquito hawks or mosquito eaters in
| Southern California. Looking back, grandparents were
| actually from Oklahoma, so I now have no idea if it was
| regional or just us. Daddy Long Legs are Cellar Spiders
| here though. For sure.
| bitwize wrote:
| My cat has been catching and eating craneflies. He's been
| enjoying the glut of flying snacks!
| stronglikedan wrote:
| Interesting! I always just thought they were the males of
| whatever the local mosquito species was. I'll stop killing
| them now.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Yeah they don't bite and don't make noise either. And they
| stay away from humans so they don't buzz around your head
| at night.
|
| I kill mosquitoes but not the crane flies. Or silverfish
| which I have in my place a lot. They're harmless.
| yungporko wrote:
| i don't know what the ones near you are like but 100% of
| the crane flies i've ever crossed paths with fly straight
| into my face like a moth to a flame. they're harmless but
| they're extremely annoying.
| Chris2048 wrote:
| Silverfish can eat cotton, linen, and silk, so they can
| do damage.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| I didn't know. Pretty much all my clothes and bedding are
| made of cotton but I never noticed. They're not like
| moths, if they eat it it is very little.
|
| Maybe they eat dust as well though and my house is pretty
| dusty so there's that :)
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Biggest issue I have with them is eating the binding glue
| in paperback books; they go nuts for that stuff.
| Loughla wrote:
| Opiliones are what we call Daddy Longlegs in the midwest. The
| spider ones we call house spiders, or attic spiders.
|
| Fun fact - Daddy longlegs smell - interesting - when you pick
| them up. It's not bad, but it's not good. It's. Different. It
| smells how you would design mint if you had only smelled
| chewing gum instead of the plant.
|
| Not sure what chemical it is that makes them mint flavored.
| Andrex wrote:
| Does it smell like a stinkbug/coriander? I confess I've
| handled daddy longlegs my entire life but never thought to
| smell them lol.
| Loughla wrote:
| No, not really. It smells pleasant, like mint gum.
|
| I've never been brave enough to chew one up, though.
| justinclift wrote:
| > Not sure what chemical it is that makes them mint flavored.
|
| So, do they taste like mint too? ;)
| krylon wrote:
| According to Wikipedia, all species have stink glands, but I
| have never noticed any smell about them. They sometimes will
| eject a leg when handled, and the leg will continue twitching
| for a while, similar to what some lizards do.
| cortesoft wrote:
| Interesting... in California, it is reversed... we call
| Pholcidae 'daddy long legs' and Opiliones we call harvestmen.
| RaftPeople wrote:
| I grew up in Seattle and we call Opiliones daddy long legs,
| and we didn't have a name for Pholcidae, the first time I
| ever saw one was in Hawaii under a couch as an adult.
| bee_rider wrote:
| So does that make them mint-flavoring-flavored?
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Thanks for this! I was looking at Wikipedia for daddy longlegs
| and was confused when it said pholcidae were spiders.
| throwanem wrote:
| That had me seriously confused as to what they could be talking
| about, because I've _seen_ how many eyes daddy longlegs have.
|
| I've never really encountered that common name applied to
| harvestmen, so presumably that's a regional thing from some
| other region.
| usrusr wrote:
| I'm pretty sure that on some days my toes can sense infrared.
| Spidey senses for the rest of us?
| smallmancontrov wrote:
| Do you mean non-heat infrared? It's probably not very
| controversial to say that all of our skin is quite good at
| detecting radiant heat.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| Skeptics like you are why we can't have any superheroes like
| Parent :( (just kidding in case it was t obvious)
| Andrex wrote:
| For about a year I could tell when my phone was about to
| ring in my pocket before the screen turned on. Something in
| the telemetry hardware stack whirring up made it feel a
| very very very near-imperceptibly tingly.
|
| But then I changed phones and it doesn't happen anymore.
| Or, lower chance, there was a software update.
|
| I believe it was the Pixel 3a.
| aaronax wrote:
| Back in the flip phone days some people had little
| dongles hanging from their antennas that would light up
| seconds before the text chime went off. I guess it sensed
| the incoming transmission?
| usrusr wrote:
| Must have listened to that little GSM handshake melody
| that used to be everywhere where speakers are connected
| to an active amp.
| usrusr wrote:
| The only thing controversial is that I should not have made
| that post here on hn. Actually it's so clearly against the
| rules that even this is not controversial, sorry.
| euroderf wrote:
| In your philtrum. Close your eyes and hold your finger under
| your nose. Sensors activate.
| robin_reala wrote:
| Harvestman, for people to whom a daddy-longlegs is a crane fly
| (en-GB?).
| ubermonkey wrote:
| "Daddy longlegs" is a weird name that seems to apply to at
| least a few bugs.
|
| In the southeastern US where I grew up, yeah, it's a thing with
| wings that I think are more precisely referred to as crane
| flies.
|
| Harvestmen exist in that part of the world, but are much less
| common, and so I never learned to use the "daddy longlegs" name
| for them.
| davidmurdoch wrote:
| I live in Florida. I never knew about another other than the
| spider version of "Daddy long legs" until now.
| danielvaughn wrote:
| Yeah, I know of 3 insects that have been called "daddy long
| legs." There are pholcidae (cellar spiders), tipuloidea
| (crane flies as you mentioned), and opiliones (harvestmen).
|
| My personal opinion is that harvestmen are the true daddy
| long legs. Odd to hear you say that they're less common where
| you are. I grew up in Tennessee, which is essentially the
| same region, and they were _everywhere_. They were all over
| my house growing up, and were the cause of many childhood
| traumas lol. I know some people don 't mind them, but they're
| the stuff of nightmares for me, I hate them probably more
| than any other insect.
| netcraft wrote:
| In western KY, west TN, northern MS, the long legged things
| with wings are gollywoppers or candleflies. Daddy longlegs
| are the spiders. It was a right of passage growing up to
| learn how to pick them up by one leg and the weight of their
| body meant that they couldnt grab on to anything with their
| other legs. Unfortunately it was common for them to lose a
| leg in the process.
| wil421 wrote:
| I've from the southeast and a daddy long leg is a spider.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| In the PNW we call 'em daddy longlegs, and it's pretty common
| to call crane flies mosquito eaters. Even though they don't.
| dwighttk wrote:
| In Texas growing up we called craneflies mosquito-hawks and
| the oft repeated fallacy was that they hunted mosquitos
| krylon wrote:
| In Germany, they are called Weberknechte, at least where I
| live. I recall reading they have a variety of nicknames in
| different parts of the country.
| integricho wrote:
| Disappointed, I was expecting a study about the virtual animals
| from Horizon Zero Dawn.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Dang! ... Who ate the middle out of the daddy longlegs?
|
| https://ifunny.co/picture/dang-who-ate-the-middle-out-of-the...
| rhplus wrote:
| Fascinating seeing species selecting and then rejecting
| additional eyes, probably because they can combine functionality
| into a single organ pair and reduce the overall "cost" to achieve
| similar results. Additional eyes in spiders typically have
| different vision functions: near/far, narrow/peripheral, motion,
| color. Our mammal eyes package that all up in a single pair.
|
| A fun related fact is that many reptiles have a third eye that's
| like a "light sensor" used to track daylight. Its function is
| linked to their cold-bloodedness, and basically triggers their
| diurnal cycles.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parietal_eye
|
| Reminds me of Tesla removing ultra sound sensors (USS) from their
| cars and moving all sensory input to their camera systems
| instead.
| high_priest wrote:
| Tesla could do this, because at initial strges, they relied on
| Lidar, Radar and other high precision, specialized sensors,
| because they were used for mapping the terrain. After millions
| miles driven, these sensors no longer need to serve their
| mapping purpose, because the areas have already been mapped &
| safe passages have been created. Just like a real, experienced
| driver, who knows the roads, all they need are Motion Sensors,
| GPS for correction & depth sensing color cameras, for handling
| infrequent dynamic scenarios.
| czzr wrote:
| Tesla did it to save costs. The world is not static, you
| can't map it once and expect that to be enough.
| schainks wrote:
| Yeah, I remember Tesla's "who needs LIDAR" announcement
| coming in the middle of a pandemic supply chain crunch,
| especially from chips needed for those LIDAR arrays.
| bsder wrote:
| The point of self-driving is to eventually be _better_ than
| humans at handling the unexpected because humans are _LOUSY_
| at handling the unexpected.
|
| I want my car to be able to see through the fog, rain or snow
| because it has better "eyes" than I do. I want my car to
| notice that train I'm about to run into because the sun glare
| is preventing me from seeing it. I want my car to have
| noticed the quick moving motorcycle behind me that's
| overtaking in a lane to my right where it shouldn't be.
|
| A self-driving car that is vision-only cannot get there.
| jart wrote:
| Buy the legacy lidar technology from Tesla and sell it to
| the military. They'd want superior vehicles.
| idunnoman1222 wrote:
| animal pictured is a harvestman I don't know who calls these
| daddy longlegs but if you google pictures of daddy long legs, you
| don't see no harvestman.
| dwighttk wrote:
| It's just a colloquial name that is applied to a number of
| organisms
| woodruffw wrote:
| Harvestmen are called Daddy Longlegs in much of the continental
| US. I grew up calling them that (and didn't what kind of bug a
| Harvestman was before this thread).
| xipho wrote:
| More species on HN! More shameless plugs. The nomenclature of
| these animals is curated in our open-source TaxonWorks. The
| result of that work is shared on a custom site via exports and
| post-processing https://www.wcolite.com/.
| serf wrote:
| I have been fascinated with pholcidae my entire life on the west
| coast because every house i've ever been in has been inhabited
| peacefully by them.
|
| when I go to the east coast i'm always trying to find opiliones
| to look at knowing that they're the 'regional daddies', but i've
| never been successful finding one.
|
| At this point I just presume either they're a bit more rare, or
| everyone on the east coast keeps tidier attics/crawl-spaces.
| shikshake wrote:
| Spiders seem so cool from a biological perspective, I wish I
| didn't have a phobia of them :(
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-03-01 23:00 UTC)