Daddy-Long-Legs Spiders in Melbourne

How to identify a daddy-long-legs spider

The daddy-long-legs, Pholcus phalangioides, is a small, pale spider with a body only about nine millimetres long and remarkably long, fine legs that give it its outsized appearance. The colouring is grey to tan, often almost translucent, and the whole animal looks delicate. It hangs upside down beneath a loose, irregular web with no sticky spiral, and it is a familiar sight in the angle of a ceiling, the corner of a wall, and in the quiet corners of sheds, garages and cupboards throughout Melbourne.

A good field clue is the way it behaves when disturbed. Touch the web and the spider often responds by whirling its body in a rapid blur, gyrating so fast it becomes hard to see clearly. This is a defence against predators, and it is distinctive enough that once you have seen it you will recognise the spider straight away. The species was introduced from Europe long ago and now lives comfortably alongside people across the country.

Three different animals are called daddy-long-legs

Much of the confusion around this animal, including the venom myth itself, comes from the name being applied to three unrelated creatures. Only one of them is the spider in your ceiling corner.

The first is the daddy-long-legs spider, Pholcus phalangioides — a true spider in the family Pholcidae. It has the two-part body with a distinct waist that all spiders have, eight eyes, silk glands, and venom glands with fangs. This is the one that builds the untidy web indoors, and it is the subject of this guide.

The second is the harvestman, an arachnid but not a spider, belonging to a separate order called Opiliones. The Australian Museum notes that although "daddy-long-legs" is commonly used for a particular group of spiders, it is also used for harvestmen, and sets out how they differ: harvestmen have no waist, so the body reads as a single oval; they do not produce silk, so they build no web at all; and they normally have only one pair of eyes, where the spider has four pairs, eight in total. Most importantly, harvestmen have no venom glands and no fangs, though some produce noxious defensive secretions. A harvestman found outdoors under a log or on a wall, with no web anywhere near it, is not a spider and could not deliver venom under any circumstances.

The third is the crane fly, which is not an arachnid at all but a long-legged insect with one pair of wings and six legs rather than eight. It is harmless, does not bite, and is called daddy-long-legs mainly in Britain. Sorting out which animal is being discussed resolves most of the myth on its own: the venom claim gets attached to whichever daddy-long-legs the listener pictures, and for two of the three the animal has no venom to be potent in the first place.

How daddy-long-legs live

Daddy-long-legs are web-dwellers that stay put once they find a sheltered indoor corner with a supply of passing insects. The web itself looks untidy and is not sticky in the way an orb-weaver's is; the spider relies on the tangle to snag prey and on its long legs to reach out and wrap anything that blunders in. Left undisturbed, a daddy-long-legs will occupy the same corner for a long time, and the pale, dusty-looking webs that gather in ceiling angles and behind doors are the sign of a settled population.

What makes them genuinely interesting is their diet. Daddy-long-legs are willing predators of other spiders, and they will tackle and eat species considerably larger than themselves, redbacks among them, along with flies, mosquitoes and other small invertebrates. A resident daddy-long-legs is one reason a garage or laundry stays clearer of other spiders than it otherwise would, and that quiet usefulness is easy to overlook given the myth attached to it.

Where they turn up in a Melbourne home

Daddy-long-legs are an indoor and near-indoor spider in a way most others are not. The Australian Museum describes them building their thin, tangled webs in sheltered positions — under furniture, behind doors, in ceiling corners, and through sheds, garages and the space under decking — and notes the species is found in houses and urban areas throughout Australia. Around a Melbourne property the reliable spots are the ones that combine shelter, stillness and a little insect traffic: the corners of a ceiling in a room that is not used much, the void behind a door that always stands open, the underside of a laundry trough, the top of a wardrobe, the garage roller-door track, and the joists beneath a deck or subfloor.

Because they are so sheltered, they are less seasonal than the spiders outdoors and a house can carry them year-round. What does change through the year is how many, and it follows the insects rather than the weather directly. Numbers build where there is a steady food supply, so a laundry, a garage with a light left on, or a room near an outdoor sensor light will collect more of them than a sealed, rarely lit spare bedroom. Households often report a sudden increase, and the usual explanation is not that the spiders arrived together but that a settled female's offspring have dispersed a short distance and set up their own webs nearby — which is why they tend to appear as a cluster of small webs in one area rather than singly across the house.

The venom myth: where it came from and why it fails

The claim is a neat and memorable one, which is part of why it has lasted: the daddy-long-legs is said to possess the most toxic venom of any spider, held harmlessly in check by fangs too short to break human skin. The Australian Museum addresses it directly and states that there is no scientific evidence to back up the idea that the venom is extraordinarily potent. The story has simply never been supported by any study of the spider's venom.

The second half of the claim has been tested too. The fangs are indeed tiny, at around a quarter of a millimetre, and it was long assumed they could not pierce skin at all. When this was examined, the fangs were shown to be capable of piercing human skin, producing only a brief, mild stinging sensation with no lasting effect. The Australian Museum also supplies the myth's likely origin: it “probably grew from observations that the Daddy-long-legs Spider will kill and eat a Redback Spider”, and the museum adds that the venom “is not actually that potent, even for insects”. Both halves of the famous story fall away on inspection: the venom is not exceptionally toxic, and the bite, such as it is, does nothing of note. Whether people describe the spider as poisonous or venomous, the answer is the same. It is harmless.

Should you remove them?

Because daddy-long-legs are harmless and useful, there is a fair case for leaving a few of them alone, particularly in a garage, shed or laundry where their appearance is neither here nor there and their appetite for other spiders is welcome. For many households the sensible view is that a daddy-long-legs in a quiet corner is doing no harm and some good.

Where the webs are unwelcome in living areas, the practical answer is regular removal with a broom or vacuum, since the spider rebuilds slowly and a clean surface discourages it from settling again. If daddy-long-legs are part of a broader spider presence across the house, including species that do carry a genuine risk, then a professional treatment that clears the lot at once is the more efficient route, and web removal is part of that work.

Reducing daddy-long-legs and other indoor spiders

Daddy-long-legs, like most house spiders, are drawn to a home by the insects it supports, so reducing that food supply is the durable way to keep spider numbers down across the board. Warm-toned outdoor lighting attracts fewer flying insects than cool white globes, which lowers the prey drifting toward the walls and windows overnight. Reducing standing water around the property removes mosquito breeding sites, another prey item that keeps indoor spiders fed.

Clearing webs regularly from ceiling corners, cornices and behind doors keeps the daddy-long-legs from establishing in living spaces, and sealing gaps around windows and doors limits how easily insects and spiders move inside. These measures manage the harmless species well enough on their own, and they also support a professional treatment where the real concern is the redbacks or other spiders sharing the same spaces.

Daddy-long-legs spider FAQs