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Opiliones and HarvestmenSpider?
I found this in my garden, I live in the Falkland Islands, South Atlantic and these have not been seen before. There was 2 of them under a piece of wood (dry) which was at the bottom of a pile. The rear is the two hairy looking legs. It is dark and reddish brown in color. The body is about the size of a dime, 4 front legs. No wings. The other one was quite a bit smaller. Thanks for your help,
Pauline
Hi Pauline,
This is a Harvestman in the order Opiliones. We recently got an email from someone more familiar with this order, and we will contact Rod Crawford to see if he can confirm or deny or provide any additional information.
There are only 2 harvestmen recorded from the Falkland Islands: Haversia defensa (Butler) and Hoggellula vallentini (Hogg) both in the family Gonyleptidae. Your photo does indeed look like a gonyleptid but is not high-res enough to have any diagnostic features. I have on hand a drawing of H. defensa showing the hind legs less stout than in the photo, so by elimination it might be considered to be H. vallentini (of which I can find no illustration without making a special trip to the library) – but I don’t really stand by the accuracy of ID by elimination! from your friendly neighborhood harvestmanman,
Rod Crawford, Burke Museum, Seattle, USA
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