Are daddy long legs really the most posionous creature on the planet?

Answer 1

They are pretty poisonous. I read once that an old Asian poison (Maybe Doku) was made from them and it could kill a human in seconds. Surely there is something more lethal in the world, but we should be happy they can't bite us.

Answer 2

The answer is NO. There are three little creature that have the nicknamed the daddy long legs. One is an insect the other two are arachnids, which one of them is a true spider and the other isn't.

The first one is also called the crane fly. It looks like a large mosquito. It doesn't bite humans and there neither venomous or poisonous. As adults, they mainly breed and die.

The second one is called the harverstman. It is not a true spider. And it does not have any venom glands. They are completely harmless. They are some large tropical species that might break a human skin, but no effect, since they have no venom.

The third one is a species of true spider. Although all spiders are venomous, many of them are harmless to humans. The spider can break the human skin, but the venom is very weak. Studies have shown that vneom even has effects on insects. So this type of spider is definitely harmless to humans.

Now the creature with the most toxic known poison in the animal kingdom are certain species of arrow poison frogs of Central and South America.

I hope this answers your question. If you have any more questions, look it up on wikipedia.com.

Answer 3

Is there any truth to this oft-repeated tale?

Daddy-longlegs (Opiliones) - these arachnids make their living by eating decomposing vegetative and animal matter although are opportunist predators if they can get away with it. They do not have venom glands, fangs or any other mechanism for chemically subduing their food. Therefore, they do not have poison and, by the powers of logic, cannot be poisonous from venom. Some have defensive secretions that might be poisonous to small animals if ingested. So, for these daddy-long-legs, the tale is clearly false.

Daddy-longlegs spiders (Pholcidae) - Here, the myth is incorrect at least in making claims that have no basis in known facts. There is no reference to any pholcid spider biting a human and causing any detrimental reaction. If these spiders were indeed deadly poisonous but couldn't bite humans, then the only way we would know that they are poisonous is by milking them and injecting the venom into humans. For a variety of reasons including Amnesty International and a humanitarian code of ethics, this research has never been done. Furthermore, there are no toxicological studies testing the lethality of pholcid venom on any mammalian system (this is usually done with mice). Therefore, no information is available on the likely toxic effects of their venom in humans, so the part of the myth about their being especially poisonous is just that: a myth. There is no scientific basis for the supposition that they are deadly poisonous and there is no reason to assume that it is true.

What about their fangs being too short to penetrate human skin? Pholcids do indeed have short fangs, which in arachnological terms is called "uncate" because they have a secondary tooth which meets the fang like the way the two grabbing parts of a pair of tongs come together. Brown recluse spiders similarly have uncate fang structure and they obviously are able to bite humans. There may be a difference in the musculature that houses the fang such that recluses have stronger muscles for penetration because they are hunting spiders needing to subdue prey whereas pholcid spiders are able to wrap their prey and don't need as strong a musculature. So, again, the myth states as fact something about which there is no scientific basis.

In summary
For true daddy-long-legs, the opilionids, the myth is certainly false, and for the daddy-long-legs spiders it is certainly not based on known facts.

Answer 4

Tarantula's are much more dangerous as spiders are concerned. But no spider comes even close to the venom certain snakes can administer. With a good bite some of these creatures can kill within 30 minutes. the Puff adder Is knowv for the fact that a good bite can be lethal within 10 minutes. Since spiders hunt much smaller prey than snakes there is no need for them to produce such powerfull venom.

Answer 5

I don't know about being the most poisonous creature on the planet, but I understand that they would be the deadliest spider in North America if they had fangs long enough to do anything with.

Answer 6

The Myth Busters episode was NOT conducted w/Daddy Long Legs. They used (presumably in error) what is commonly called the American Cellar Spider. Daddy Long Legs do not spin webs, & If you watch closely they will "try" and fang the stuffing out of you if you hold them by their bunched legs and allow/rub their body/torso against your finger.

Answer 7

No it has no poison at all.
did u mean the daddy long legs spider, cos that is incredibliy poisonous, but not thee most poisonous.
that honour belongs to a type of box jellyfish (sorry cant remember the exact name of the box jellyfish species).
Also the bacteria in a comodo dragons mouth, is very lethal and is actually more dangerous than the jellyfish's poison.

Answer 8

i don't think they're the most poisonous creature on the planet, but maybe it's all in relation to their size, or mass or something? By the way, did someone say they were spiders? They're Crane Flies! Still utterly vile though.

Answer 9

Apparently daddy longlegs contain one of the deadliest toxins known to man, however they contain such small amounts that they are practically harmless, however I'm sure it would be possible to extract the poison with enough know how and enough daddy long legs.
nothing eats daddy longlegs!

Answer 10

Daddy long leg SPIDERS are poisonou but not to humans , the crane fly which we in the uk also call a daddy long leg is NOT poisonous see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daddy_long-legs_spider and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crane_fly