![female long bodied cellar spider female long bodied cellar spider](https://content.eol.org/data/media/28/14/ec/18.https___www_inaturalist_org_photos_1011385.jpg)
Reduction of outdoor lighting or changing white light bulbs to yellow will help to attract fewer night-flying insects and thus reduce the spider populations. Reduction of other insects in and around a home will reduce the food available to the spiders, and removal of debris and lumber piles will help to reduce harborage sites. Sweeping is not likely to kill the spiders, but pyrethroid insecticides provide excellent knockdown and control. Sweeping of webs to remove them is an important step in cellar spider control, as these spiders do not reuse their own silk, and the webs continue to accumulate. There may be either 6 or 8 eyes, depending on the species, and the outer 3 eyes on either side of the head are arranged in a close triangle. The color is a yellowish brown and the legs may be as long as 2 inches. The long-bodied cellar spider is sometimes called the 'skull spider' because the part of its body containing its head looks like a human skull. The female creates an egg mass of about a dozen eggs, and holds it in her jaws until the eggs hatch.Ĭellar spiders are easily identified by their extraordinarily long and thin legs, which are attached to their elongate and thin body. These spiders have been known to feed on black widow spiders. They hang upside down on their webs, and when disturbed they will begin to shake and bounce the web noticeably, or they may drop off the web and run to hide. Their long legs make them very clumsy when attempting to walk. Webs typically appear under the eaves of roofs, around porch lights, within garages, and indoors around windows where the light may draw small insects that the spiders feed on. Their primary crime is the messiness of their webs, which are thin and flimsy but tend to gather dust and floating debris, as well as the remains of the insects the spiders have fed on. Other characteristics add to their camouflage: Their gray, tan, or whitish color, small body size, and remarkable habit of vibrating or bouncing rapidly in their webs when alarmed. The tarsi (feet) are flexible, adding to the wispy impression they give. The cellar spiders are incapable of biting humans and are harmless to us and our pets. Cellar spiders are inconspicuous, harmless, fragile spiders with extremely long, thin legs. The harvestmen belong to the category of arachnids but they are their own species, so they are not spiders. However, the true Daddy Long-legs is another animal entirely, called the Harvestman. First of all, cellar spiders (or daddy long leg spiders) are a completely different species when compared to daddy longlegs (Opiliones, or harvestmen). Psilochorus generally hides away in dark cellars, often wine cellars, where it spins an open tangle of threads that. Males and females measure no more than 2.5mm. The abdomen is globular and tinted bluish unlike that of Phocus which is tubular and greyish. The cellar spiders are often called “Daddy Long-legs” due to their very long, thin legs. It is a tin, long-legged, pale spider with a dark band covering the middle of the thorax.
![female long bodied cellar spider female long bodied cellar spider](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IjYmaxGiQdo/Tc4NSt5AgNI/AAAAAAAAFpM/VnInLOx8Y48/s1600/female-cellar-spider-5.jpg)
Several dozen species of Pholcids are native to North America, with the three species listed above the most common to be found in and on structures.