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Sticker of Fork-palped harvestman
Bug card No. 0533 of 1,500

Fork-palped harvestman

Dicranopalpus ramosus
Eats: A bit of everythingScorpions, ticks and friendsGardens and meadows8 legsNot an insect, but a bug cousin

The fork-palped harvestman has a tiny brown body and super long, thin legs. It likes to rest flat on walls with its legs stretched out to the sides like a star. Near its mouth it has two little feelers that split at the end like a fork.

Fun fact: this one is not an insect. It is an arachnid with eight legs, a cousin of the spiders.
Lives in
First from Morocco, now in much of Western Europe and even Oregon in the United States, on garden walls
Length
4 to 6 mm (0.16 to 0.24 in)
Top speed
about 1 km/h (0.62 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It has no venom and cannot bite you.
What does it eat?
Like other harvestmen, it eats small insects and other tiny creatures, and bits of dead things too.
For real!Photo of Fork-palped harvestman
Picture by Atalanta. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Fork-palped harvestman about 6 mm long (0.24 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)
small enough to sit on your fingernailcould run across a dinner table in 3.6 secondsmoves 46 times its own body length every second

How big is Fork-palped harvestman compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Its second pair of legs can be up to 5 centimetres long. That is about ten times as long as its body.

2

It has spread from Morocco across Europe, from Portugal and Spain to Britain, Denmark and Sweden.

3

You can find grown-ups from August to November, mostly in gardens and on outside walls, and sometimes indoors.

4

The girls are bigger and lighter in colour than the boys.

5

In 2019 someone took a photo of one in Oregon, the first sign that it had reached America.

you asked

Most asked questions about Fork-palped harvestman

?Is a harvestman a spider?

No. It has eight legs like a spider, but its body is all one round piece and it does not spin webs.

?Is the fork-palped harvestman dangerous?

No. It has no venom and cannot hurt you.

?Where can I find a fork-palped harvestman?

On garden walls and fences in late summer and autumn, resting with its long legs spread out.

Myth buster

Myth: Harvestmen are the most venomous spiders in the world.

Truth: No. Harvestmen are not spiders at all, and they have no venom. They are completely harmless.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Dicranopalpus ramosus
Group
Scorpions, ticks and friends
Family
Phalangiidae
Classification
Arachnida > Opiliones > Phalangiidae
Lives on
Africa, Europe, North America

Where the facts come from

  1. Dicranopalpus ramosus (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by Atalanta. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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