A new study proves daddy-longlegs spiders are completely harmless to humans, but they are fierce enough to eat live frogs

The famous story about daddy longlegs being secretly deadly to humans is a complete myth. However, they are still amazing hunters.

You have probably heard the old rumor that daddy-longlegs are the most venomous spiders on Earth, but cannot bite you because their fangs are too short.

Spider experts at UC Riverside note this is completely false. However, a new 2026 study shows these bugs are still fierce hunters that can actually catch and eat live frogs.

Three animals share one name

"Three different unrelated groups are called 'daddy-longlegs,'" wrote Rod Crawford, an affiliate curator at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture in Seattle.

"That is a full-fledged Urban Legend, with no basis in fact whatever," is Crawford's verdict on the venom claim. He added that many people believe it who should know better, including some teachers and TV documentary producers.

Harvestmen belong to the order Opiliones. They are arachnids, like spiders, but their body is all in one section.

Cellar spiders, of the family Pholcidae, have the two-section body that all spiders share. They are also known as pholcid or house spiders.

Crane flies are not arachnids at all. They are insects, and like harvestmen, they have no venom.

Harvestmen have no fangs

Harvestmen "do not have venom glands or fangs, so they cannot (and will not) bite you," the Clemson Cooperative Extension explains.

They also lack spinnerets, the organs spiders use to produce silk. As a result, harvestmen cannot spin webs.

Most adults have an oval body about 1/16 to 1/2 inch (1.6 to 13 millimeters) long. Their second pair of legs is the longest and serves as a sensory structure, somewhat like an insect's antennae.

Their mouthparts resemble those of crabs or scorpions and hold prey while they eat. Harvestmen are omnivores that eat small insects, including aphids, and scavenge dead insects and other organic matter.

To protect themselves, they release a pungent odor that most predators find distasteful. Their legs break off easily and may keep twitching, which can distract a predator.

In fall, harvestmen sometimes gather in large clusters on trees and homes. They do not damage structures when they cluster.

Cellar spiders and their bite

Like almost all spiders, cellar spiders do have spider venom. Yet pholcid venom "is unusually weak in its effect on insects," Crawford pointed out, citing a study.

The word "venomous" describes anatomy, not danger to people. An animal qualifies if it has venom glands and ducts that deliver the venom through hardened structures such as fangs or a sting.

"There is no reference to any pholcid spider biting a human and causing any detrimental reaction," the UC Riverside page states.

Pholcid fangs are short and "uncate," with a secondary tooth that meets the fang the way the two arms of a pair of tongs come together.

Brown recluse spiders also have uncate fangs, and they can bite humans. The difference may lie in muscle strength, since cellar spiders wrap their prey and do not need as strong a musculature.

The myth is false for harvestmen, while for cellar spiders it is "certainly not based on known facts," UC Riverside's spider researchers concluded.

Crane flies cannot bite

Crane flies are large, long-legged flies that some people call "mosquito hawks" in the belief that they eat mosquitoes.

"Crane flies may look like overgrown mosquitoes, but they do not bite, and they do not eat mosquitoes," wrote Blake Layton, an extension entomology specialist at Mississippi State University.

The short-lived adults either do not feed or feed only on nectar and other liquids.

Their legs have a special suture that lets them break off easily, which helps the flies escape predators.

There are hundreds of crane fly species, and many of them are aquatic or semi-aquatic.

Mature larvae, known as leatherjackets, are tan, lack true legs and grow to about 2 inches (5 centimeters) long. Some common species feed in the thatch layer of grasses in lawns, fields and roadsides.

Harvestmen that catch frogs

Arthropods are usually seen as prey for vertebrates, not as their predators. Several invertebrates are known to eat frogs, but evidence of harvestmen preying on vertebrates had remained largely anecdotal.

First author Esteban Calvache worked with 11 co-authors based in Ecuador, Venezuela, Colombia and Uruguay. The team reported novel field observations of frog predation by multiple harvestman species in the family Cranaidae, at several Neotropical localities.

"These records include the active capture and consumption of live frogs, demonstrating their role as opportunistic mesopredators," the authors wrote.

Eating vertebrates may also be more taxonomically widespread among arachnids than previously recognized.

The authors argue that harvestmen should be considered potential predators when ecologists map who eats whom in Neotropical food webs.

The study was published in the journal Ecology and Evolution.

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