Pholcus is a genus of spiders of long-bodied cellar spider and allies in the family Pholcidae, with 375 described species as of January 2023. It includes the cellar spider P. phalangioides, often called the "daddy longlegs". This may cause confusion because the name "daddy longlegs" is also applied to two other unrelated arthropods: the harvestman and the crane fly.

Description

Pholcus, like Pholcidae in general, have extremely long and thin legs. The genus can be distinguished from other pholcid genera by its large size (body length >4 mm), eight eyes, evenly domed prosoma (lacking a median furrow or pit) and cylindrical opisthosoma (longer than it is high).

Habitat

In the wild, Pholcus live in environments such as caves, under rocks, forest shrubs and deep limestone cracks. Synanthropic species such as P. phalangioides live in and around buildings and other disturbed habitats.

Species

Identification resources