The colloquial name daddy-long-legs is often used to refer to Pholcidae, harvestmen, and crane flies. This name originates in Faroese as “lokki-grindalokki-grindalokkur” which literally translates to “daddy-long-legs”. It is likely a kenning and more accurately translates to “grandfather of web spinners” as it refers to the Nordic god Loki who was associated with spiders in folklore.
Huh, who uses that term for “crane flies”? We (US) use it for Pholcidae, and I think I’ve heard harvestmen called that on Australia or something, but never crane flies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pholcidae
Huh, who uses that term for “crane flies”? We (US) use it for Pholcidae, and I think I’ve heard harvestmen called that on Australia or something, but never crane flies.
We use skeeter bomber/eater for crane flies, depending on how recently they’ve eaten
Definitely depends on the region, cause daddy long legs are harvestmen (northeast US) e.g.
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The UK uses it for crane flies.
I think Ireland does. I occasionally hear it here in the UK, though it typically means harvestmen here
I always heard it used for both and it confused me that they were two different things.
I suppose it could depend on the region? We’ve got a very dense patchwork of dialects and they’ll naturally bleed into one another a fair bit