Breathe In And Out...

By ScotNatureBoy

A harvestman a-roving goes...

This is a backblip for yesterday (2nd Sept) as I was out singing until late last night. It is a harvestman, a beastie closely related to but not actually a spider. It was wandering over the gravel shore of the loch on my office's business park. Harvestmen are, like spiders, members of the Arachnids (along with mites and scorpions) but they have a different body plan with head, thorax and abdomen more fused together. There are 20-something species recorded in Britain. Identification generally requires more than a photo but this one LOOKS LIKE the common harvestman species Phalangium opilio. But there's every chance I have made a wrong identification. This one has lost a leg on the left side (it has a stump). Unlike spiders, harvestmen can't regenerate lost limbs, so this one will be a 7-legged individual from now on!

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