A Year in the Valley

When we were looking for the green cricket that had flown across the garden to the willow sapling, we spotted this common harvestman (Leiobunum rotundum).  It had a bright red body with black spindly legs.  Harvestmen are related to spiders but differ from them because their round body fuses together the head, thorax, and abdomen into one segment, whereas spiders’ bodies have two segments – head/thorax and abdomen.   They have hooks on the ends of their legs, which they use to catch their prey.  Their eyes are housed in an ocularium, which is a periscope-style structure on the top of their body. This one is black.  They eat small invertebrates, and some eat fungi and fruit as well.