Fuzzy Clump in Viral Video is Cluster of Opillonids
Posted on January 5, 2014
A viral video circulating around the Internet shows a fuzzy clump on a large plastic object. A man pets the fuzzy clump with his finger and suddenly there are hundreds of daddy long legs running all around. These are harmless arachnids in the order Opiliones. They can be told apart from spiders because they have just one main body segment and not two like spiders. As you can see in the video they look like little balls with legs running all about.
The opillonids clump like this in order to stay warm according to Discovery. Another popular video of a daddy long leg or harvestmen cluster on a tree has been circulating online since 2009. Take a look:
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