Talk:Opiliones

Opiliones was nominated as a good article, but it did not meet the good article criteria at the time (September 8, 2006, reviewed version). There are suggestions below for improving the article. If you can improve it, please do; it may then be renominated.

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Find a source that can put two and two together?

The article states in the Etymology section: "The Swedish naturalist, Karl Sundevall, first used the term Opiliones in 1833, and derived from the Latin 'opilio', meaning 'sheep-master' or 'shepherd', although the sense of the allusion is unclear." (Harvestmen - Glauco Machado, Gonzalo Giribet).

While it is useful to know the Latin derivation, the inclusion of the statement "although the sense of the allusion is unclear" shows that the author(s) of that statement have never taken the time to observe a true shepherd in action (one with only a staff and no work dogs to assist), else the allusion would be obvious.

I suggest either removal of the "although the sense of the allusion is unclear" statement, or an additional quote from some source that has better insight. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.212.45.234 (talk) 23:55, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

ID error in photo

The photo labeled "Leiobunum politum" is actually Hadrobunus grandis. Note that femur I is much shorter than the length of the body, which is diagnostic for the genus. The unlabeled figure is a male Phalangium opilio.

Location

What would be really helpful is if it mentioned somewhere where on earth these things are found...

I live in northeast Florida and the longlegs used to be very common. During the summer there were numerous individuals or small groups clustered on shady walls.They never seemed to be doing anything at all. This was 20-25 years ago and I cannot recollect the last time I encountered one, but I saw no mention of this geographical area in the "Endangered" section.

GA Failed

This article failed the GA noms due to lack of references. Tarret 21:14, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Singular?

What is the singular of Opiliones? Is it Opilione? Or Opiliones?

Is the name Opilionid valid? IronC hris | (talk) 02:26, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, everybody. The singular should be Opilion. In English it is very common to read "opilionid", but it is just because of the unused form Opilionida. This appeared in an attempt to standardize the ordinal names in the 1940s. But the official name recognized by ISA is Opiliones. --Vae victis 16:56, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What is the singular of harvestmen? Is it Harvestman? Billlion 22:43, 11 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've never read "Opilion" in the literature... it seems that "Opilione" is preferred to refer to a single individual or single species. "Opiliones" can refer to the order or several individuals. "Opilionid" is used more in older texts.

I would suggest that all three are acceptible as they all appear routinely in published works. Older authors refer to "Phalangids" which is also technically appropriate to refer to the Palpatores + Laniatores (contained within the grouping "Phalangia"), especially the British species.

Megabunus (talk) 18:12, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mythbusters

The myth mentioned was actually tested by the MythBusters of the Discovery Channel. They found that the venom of daddy long legs is not more lethal than that of a Black Widow spider. Second, the fangs are long enough to pierce the skin. Third, actual intentional infliction of multiple bites caused no significant side effects for a human.

BBC has an interesting article on & photo of one of these in amber. Appartently, it will be pretty important to science.

Actually, the MythBusters tested the Daddy Longlegs spider, not the Harvestmen. 68.48.174.136 04:11, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I thought I should add a note here in the hope that people may read it before adding any references to the Mythbusters TV show yet again. The episode in which the Daddy Long Legs's poisonous bite was tested used cellar spiders, not harvestmen and so there is no need to mention it in this article. --WaterWolf (talk) 12:37, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

== Grammar & Details == Regarding:

Because they are a ubiquitous order, but species are often restricted to small regions due to their low dispersal rate,[citation needed] they are good models for biogeographic studies.[dubious – discuss]

I can guess at what the person who wrote this meant to say, but am putting this in discussion to make sure.

My guess is: "This order exists in all environments on the planet, but in isolated populations. Therefore, they are good models for biogeographical studies."

Given that someone put up the citation and dubious tags, I'm not even sure that's all true. I'm not an expert on these arachnids. Someone who is may want to either update the wording to make sense in a fashion similar to my example or remove that statement all together. Mjatucla (talk) 03:53, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest splitting the statement into two phrases. For example:

"Common and Ubiquitous, the Opiliones occur in all major continents with the exception of the Antarctic (Curtis and Machado 2007)."

"Due to their high endemism and low vagility (Pinto-da-Rocha and Silva 2005; Mestre and Pinto-da-Rocha 2004) the harvestmen make ideal model organisms in biogeographic studies".

References:

Curtis D J and Machado G. (2007). Ecology. In Pinto-da-Rocha, Machado and Giribet (2005). eds. Harvestmen: the biology of opiliones. Harvard University Press. London.

Mestre L A M and Pinto-da-Rocha R. (2004). Population dynamics of an isolated population of the Harvestmen Ilhaia cuspidate (Opiliones, Gonyleptidae), in Araucaria Forest (Curitiba, Parená, Brazil). The Journal of Arachnology 32: 208-220.

Pinto-da-Rocha R and Bernardino da Silva M. (2005). Faunistic similarity and historic biogeography of the harvestmen of southern and southeastern Atlantic rain forest of Brazil. The Journal of Arachnology. 33:290-299.

Megabunus (talk) 18:05, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Toxicity when ingested

Would someone kindly discuss the toxicity of harvestmen when ingested by humans or animals? Thank you. 71.87.170.182 (talk) 16:48, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm assuming since they have no venom they're quite non-toxic besides any parasites that may be living inside of them. 71.243.45.34 (talk) 02:38, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]