Unidentified Harvestman

[Mister Luke]

I found this in my garden this evening, at about 9pm. I believe it's a harvestman but the body is bigger than I've ever seen, especially in relation to the legs. Can someone please identify this for me?

[Action_Man]

Hi and welcome to the WAB forums.

Can you estimate the size of the body, excluding the legs, and do you have any other shots ? ...

[Mister Luke]

Thanks for the welcome.

I estimate the body length to be around 2cm. Unfortunately that was the best shot I could get, the other ones were taken outside in the dark and didn't come out very well.

[I Love Nature]

To me it looks mor like a harvestman than anything else, but I'm no expert.

[Action_Man]

Originally Posted by Mister Luke

I estimate the body length to be around 2cm.

I think you would need to re-estimate the body size, because 2cm`s would be rather large, the largest British Opilione is around 8mms ...

[I Love Nature]

Yeah I know, I really am no expert. I'm probably wrong. I just thought it looked like a harvestman.

[Geoff F]

Yes, it is a harvestman (too many legs for an insect) but the question is which species. You really need a good close up clear photo for a confirmed ID. Although Gordon is a lot better than me at reaching a possible answer from these 'casual' photos. I need to run it through the ID keys to have any chance of a correct ID.

Most of the commoner large harvestmen (around 10 mm body length for a large female) do have rather long legs; say 30 to 50 mm, but when the legs are well bent they can appear to be much smaller.

But there are other, although less common, largish species where the body to leg ratio gives relatively shorter leg lengths. Which is where accurate size measurement becomes a useful identification clue.

[I Love Nature]

It dosn't sound very efficient but with my beginner araeneology skills I just look at a something like this with 8 legs and say if it has 2 body segments it is a spider and if it has 1 it is a harvestman.

[John_M]

Originally Posted by I Love Nature

It dosn't sound very efficient but with my beginner araeneology skills I just look at a something like this with 8 legs and say if it has 2 body segments it is a spider and if it has 1 it is a harvestman.

That's right. When you said it looked like a harvestman in your first post, you were correct
It's definitely a harvestman, but the size estimate is very large; this isn't uncommon, it's very easy to over or underestimate the size of an animal; I do it myself on a regular basis, so now I carry a small ruler around

[I Love Nature]

Yes I agree, I now have more efficient ways, I know it sounds to big but I agree with you John.