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!

I knew they were officially crane flies but thought that daddy long legs was a more affectionate term for them.
Since having kids and watching too much Peppa Pig we call the spiders Mr Skinny Legs

@SteveArnottsWaistcoat

It’s like wasps aren’t wasps. They’re actually just cunts!

My cunt is nothing like a wasp!

If so doubt we'd have dc2 😂😂😂

@SteveArnottsWaistcoat 😂😂😂😂😂

Wasps ARE cunts

@NiceGerbil

There is surely no THIS IS WRONG/ RIGHT about local vernacular?!

Daddy long legs is crane fly to me.

Other people may call different animals that and that's fine.

I had a terrible time with chukky pigs. Similar issue. Different story!

Surely only woodlice are called chukky/choogey/chiggy pigs or variations of. No one is saying that about a different creature like a millipede or something crazy are they?

What's the name for the English big spiders that are pretty big and live maybe under the telly and come popping out when they think everyone is in bet and they stop and look worried if you're still up because you're 17 and it's 1992?

My parents call them house spiders and there's usually only one. Under the telly. Big but shy.

Is that a sort or was it just our Mavis?

(Little point in comparing our spiders to USA aus etc where they have Spiders and see just have well. Ones that don't eat you etc!).

I've had the Daddy Long Legs argument many times. Daddy Long Legs are Crane Flies they have wings and are creepy fuckers who try to land on your head while you sleep. Skinny Long legs spiders are skinny Long legs spiders NOT Daddy Long Legs.

How about a spider that looks like a wasp?

[quote YukoandHiro]@SteveArnottsWaistcoat 😂😂😂😂😂

Wasps ARE cunts [/quote]
Yes they are.

As are those Hover Flies that pretend to be wasps and bees...
And scare people so they squeel and everyone laughs at them for being scared of a harmless hover fly..

(this has NEVER happened to me ever.. nope.. honest)

MiddleClassProblem

Yes! The difficulty was that my mum was from a different part of England to where I grew up

When I was nearly 40 u realised for the first time that when I mentioned chukky pigs (and they don't come up that often) that no one knew wtf I was on about!

I had no idea I was speaking a totally different language to everyone around me, with that word!

I’m so glad to hear of our Jenny Long Legs, at times I’ve doubted that’s what we called them in our house as I’ve never met a person since I left home who calls them Jenny!

chukky pigs

What now???

Jenny Long legs up here in Scotland.

@NiceGerbil The big "under TV" spiders, house spiders, are wolf spiders (I think)

Ooh thanks Gertie!

I heard all the nice TV spiders got eaten by some mean new spiders.

I hope not :(

Oh lord well I'm going to stop with the google images!

I did learn there's one in UK just called 'house spider' and it looks like my under TV spider.

Kept me company when the family was in bed! Big bugger but horrified to see me when it popped out late at night!

Woodlice = chukky pig

My mum failed to teach me that literally no one called them that where I lived my whole life :D

Apart from her me and siblings obv!

Oh I always thought they were daddy long legs, and as a child I was told Jenny Longlegs were the female ones!😀😀 ( no idea how you’d tell the difference!)

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

This. There may well be regional variations, but daddy long legs are arachnids without wings and crane flies are flying insects and they are definitely not the same (8 legs vs 6 legs) But many people are crap at small animal identification.

You probably don't get crane flies in Australia because they're harmless and thus won't have been allowed entry by Australian insect immigration.

The spider under the TV is probably a house spider - tegenaria.

I think I read somewhere that woodlice have a greater number of regional names than any other mini beast.

Wondering if all of us calling them Jenny Long Legs are in Scotland?

Just to say - this name was only ever given to crane flies in my house. Never any type of spider.

I’ve always thought DLL and crane flies are the same thing. I didn’t know they were poisonous 😳 I catch them in my hands and throw them out when DC start screeching. Big hairy arsed house spiders that run like Usain Bolt are known as Big Fred in our house. Now those, alongside wasps are also cunts!

Crane flies are not venomous and cannot bite at all - most can't even eat. Cellar spiders are venomous (as are all spiders) but only mildly so and unlikely to be able to bite people anyway.

@GerundTheBehemoth

Crane flies are not venomous and cannot bite at all - most can't even eat. Cellar spiders are venomous (as are all spiders) but only mildly so and unlikely to be able to bite people anyway.

This!

Surely the fact that DLLs are poisonous is enough to prove it’s the spiders and not crane flies, at very least when that fact is raised.

Crane flies are definitely Daddy Long Legs. I've never in my life heard of that name being used to describe any type of spider until today!

The Wildlife Trusts agrees that it's a cranefly here and further investigation suggests that that definition is the British/Canadian understanding of what it is, with the arachnid interpretation being American in origin.