Daddy Long Legs (Opiliones) (Formerly Phalangida)



English and Scientific Name: Daddy Long Legs (Opiliones) (Formerly Phalangida)

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Arthropoda

Class: Arachnida

Observation:  This is a daddy long legs and the first thing I realized is so often we see a daddy long legs and assume it's a spider but a daddy long legs isn't a spider it's called a Opiliones.  After doing a little bit of research on it I found that one of it’s’ food sources is fecal material (Wikipedia.org, 2011).  Amazing fact because a human would be extremely sick consuming fecal material.

Questions:

1.      Why is the name no longer Phalangida?

2.      What is does its’ body consist of to make it able to consume fecal material?

3.      This is not a spider but when did spiders originate?

Scientific Research:

Coddington, Jonathan A. and Levi, Herbert W. Systematics and Evolution of Spiders (Araneae).  Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics.  Vol. 22, (1991), pp. 565-592.  Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2097274

When did spiders originate?

According to Coddington and Levi the earliest spider fossil is Attercopus fimbriunguis from the Middle Devonian Gilboa site in New York State.