Yesterday 07:07 PM
(This post was last modified: Yesterday 07:14 PM by C C.)
For some reason I'm not entirely surprised by this. There are tiny frogs around here at times, and maybe I've actually seen a longlegs munching on a "gummy bear" treat before (faded memory).
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Daddy longlegs hunt and eat frogs in South America
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-new...180988810/
EXCERPTS: Proaño works as a naturalist guide at Mashpi Lodge, an eco-hotel located within the 7,900-acre Mashpi-Tayra Reserve, so he’s intimately familiar with the diverse creatures that wander the forest’s misty hills. And though he had never seen a harvestman eating a frog before, he wasn’t necessarily surprised, given that harvestmen are omnivores known to consume just about anything they can get their gangly legs on. He’d previously seen the spindly arachnids eating worms, caterpillars and, once, the tail of a scorpion.
“I didn’t know this was something special,” Proaño tells Smithsonian magazine. “I thought it was normal because frogs are good prey for everybody. They don’t have any scales or hard bones. They are like gummy bears in the forest.”
But when Proaño later mentioned the encounter to Esteban Calvache, a biologist at Mashpi Lodge, Calvache was immediately intrigued. Proaño, it turns out, had witnessed one of just a handful of known instances of harvestmen preying on adult frogs, according to a study published in April in the journal Ecology and Evolution.
Harvestmen may look like spiders at first glance, but the estimated 6,660 described species form a distinct group of arachnids more closely related to mites, ticks and scorpions. Though they have eight legs, their simple, oval-shaped bodies lack the defined “waist” of spiders, and most species have just two eyes instead of multiple pairs.
They also lack venomous fangs and silk glands, so instead of spinning webs to catch unsuspecting prey, they wander around in search of whatever tasty morsels they can scavenge. Additionally, harvestmen eat solid food, rather than liquefying and slurping up other creatures like spiders do... (MORE - missing details)
Harvestman chowing on fly, plus a scavenging ant ... https://youtu.be/4FnG0Xad4eE
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/4FnG0Xad4eE
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Daddy longlegs hunt and eat frogs in South America
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-new...180988810/
EXCERPTS: Proaño works as a naturalist guide at Mashpi Lodge, an eco-hotel located within the 7,900-acre Mashpi-Tayra Reserve, so he’s intimately familiar with the diverse creatures that wander the forest’s misty hills. And though he had never seen a harvestman eating a frog before, he wasn’t necessarily surprised, given that harvestmen are omnivores known to consume just about anything they can get their gangly legs on. He’d previously seen the spindly arachnids eating worms, caterpillars and, once, the tail of a scorpion.
“I didn’t know this was something special,” Proaño tells Smithsonian magazine. “I thought it was normal because frogs are good prey for everybody. They don’t have any scales or hard bones. They are like gummy bears in the forest.”
But when Proaño later mentioned the encounter to Esteban Calvache, a biologist at Mashpi Lodge, Calvache was immediately intrigued. Proaño, it turns out, had witnessed one of just a handful of known instances of harvestmen preying on adult frogs, according to a study published in April in the journal Ecology and Evolution.
Harvestmen may look like spiders at first glance, but the estimated 6,660 described species form a distinct group of arachnids more closely related to mites, ticks and scorpions. Though they have eight legs, their simple, oval-shaped bodies lack the defined “waist” of spiders, and most species have just two eyes instead of multiple pairs.
They also lack venomous fangs and silk glands, so instead of spinning webs to catch unsuspecting prey, they wander around in search of whatever tasty morsels they can scavenge. Additionally, harvestmen eat solid food, rather than liquefying and slurping up other creatures like spiders do... (MORE - missing details)
Harvestman chowing on fly, plus a scavenging ant ... https://youtu.be/4FnG0Xad4eE