Species Pholcus manueli

Cellar Spider, Daddy Longlegs

See the World Spider Catalog.

Body length roughly 5mm or less.(1) This species is smaller than the other two introduced Pholcus.

Epigynum

Palp

Dr. Bernhard Huber's 2011 revision of the genus Pholcus includes some habitus images of the male on page 343 (see:(2)).

Looks very similar to our other two introduced (non-native) species of Pholcus. We do not often come in contact with the Pholcus species that are actually endemic (native) to the USA, but those could also be mistaken for P. manueli (there's ~10 species found mostly in the Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama area, often in caves).

Pholcus manueli has two dark, vertical stripes on the clypeus (the space between the bottom row of eyes and the beginning of the chelicerae), while P. phalangioides & P. opilionoides do not. The dark medial mark on the carapace of P. manueli is more distinctly divided than the medial mark on P. phalangioides. And P. opilionoides can be separated from the others by the dark marks on the lateral border of their carapace. P. phalangioides also gets bigger than the other two species, twice as large in many cases. Also, Gertsch(3) noted that the eyes are much more closely grouped in P. manueli than in P. phalangioides.

    P. manueli   vs.   P. phalangioides     vs. P. opilionoides

          

Midwestern & northeastern United States (specific localities in published literature include IL, KS, ME, MN, NJ, OH, PA (1)(3)).

[At the 2011 AAS meeting, Jonathan Edwards (Miami University, Ohio) presented a talk about the dispersal of this species. Of note is that it "has recently expanded its range in North America and is now abundant and successful throughout the Midwest" (from the talk abstract).]

Synanthropic: typically associated with humans and found indoors.

Female bundles eggs in a few strands of silk and carries them in her jaws until they hatch.

Other Pholcus