Daddy long legs are not daddy long legs. Has my whole life been a lie?

[EightToSixer]

I’m middle aged and I’ve thought my whole entire life that daddy long legs were large flying bugs that look like spiders but fly around particularly at dusk and dark.
Discussion with FIL yesterday and it turns out that daddy long legs is a type of arachnid and that what I thought was a daddy long legs is actually a crane fly?!?

I’m a well educated middle aged woman, how did I only just find this out? Why has nobody corrected me all this time?

Make me feel less stupid by telling me what you didn’t know!

Crane flies are Daddy long legs in my world.

They are the same thing!

Dh keeps saying that daddy long legs are called crane flies. Nonsense. He is the only person I know who doesn't call them daddy long legs. Because that is what they are.

Yep, crane flies / daddy long legs = same thing in my book. What does your fil think a daddy long legs is?

Wait, what?

So are daddy long legs the same as the spindly cellar spiders?

I didn’t know this either.

Yep a common thing with most I think.

I also heard as a child that daddy long legs are deadly poisonous but their teeth are too soft to bite us.

It can be either. I had an argument with an american friend and turned out we were both right en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daddy_longlegs

Your Fil is wrong. In the UK crane flies are known as daddy long legs

This photo help s

Wow, google actually tells me daddy long legs are cellar spiders aka the non creepy thin spiders that kill and eat the creepy ones. Is that maybe a US thing? They’ve been an alternative name for crane flies all my life......

Those spiders with the long thin legs are Daddy Long Legs.

Crane Flies are... Daddy Long Legs.

Crane flies are daddy long legs. Certainly in the UK.

I’ve just googled them and I am satisfied that what I thought was a daddy long legs IS a daddy long legs.

I am LESS THAN THRILLED about this news of their poisonous soft-toothed gnawing, like a man trying to thumb in a softie but with spider poison.

Also Wikipedia tells me they’re also known as “gyrating spiders”

Sorry you are both long - they are actually called Jenny Long Legs

No - that photo is wrong only the flying ones are daddy long legs/crane flies.

They're all daddy long legs. That's just the way it is!

I've always known DLL as spiders and the flying things as crane flies. Never called them DLL's.

Crane fly is definitely a Daddy Long Legs

Crane flies/DLLs are flies - 6 legs.
Cellar spiders and harvestmen are spiders - 8 legs

Shhhh don't ruin my childhood. 🤣

Who is stopping to count legs and quibble when a TERRIFYING THINGY is flapping in your FACE in the SHED

I’m with FIL. But I also know a lot of people who call crane flies daddy long legs so I think it’s a pretty common nickname for them too and probably comes out of the dangly legged similarity.

It’s a lot less annoying than people who think honey bees are wasps.

A daddy long legs is a crane fly. Evil fuckers. Why do they always fly straight at your face?!!

Hate the bloody things.

And just for back up with DLL being the spiders - The Natural History Museum is our team lol:
www.nhm.ac.uk/take-part/identify-nature/spiders-in-your-home/daddy-long-legs-spider.html