Harvestmen are intriguing, mis-understood, and often misidentified creatures. Though they are arachnids, they are not spiders. They are recognized as opiliones. The only similarities between spiders and opiliones is the number of legs they possess. Leg-counts notwithstanding, there are numerous, easy, ways to distinguish between harvestmen and spiders. Like most familiar arachnids, spiders possess two body parts, a cephalothorax and abdomen; they possess a prodigious number of eyes…well, okay…more than two; they produce both silk and venom, and they’re not in the habit of losing their legs. Harvestmen, by contrast, possess only one recognizable body part with a knob-like turret situated midway along its back. This knob is flanked on either side by the creature’s primitive, simple eyes. Unlike spiders, harvestmen are unable to resolve images with their eyes: they simply act as motion sensors. Harvestmen (despite popular claims) are not venomous and they do not bite, not even when provoked. They don’t possess fangs, though they do possess grasping appendages similar to the complicated articulated moustaches that accent quite a number of insect mouths. Though a few harvestman species are predatory, most are omnivores known to subsist on everything from fungi to bird-drops, to dead things. I once read that the study of a harvestman is often a study of its legs. This oddly scientific double-entendre is due to the fact that harvestmen have a really hard time keeping all of their legs attached to their bodies. They often lose at least one leg during a normal lifespan, though it’s quite common that they’ll lose 2 or 3. Though harvestmen lack antennae, their second pair of legs often serves this function. In many harvestman species, the second pair of legs is also the longest. To remove a harvestman’s legs is to (potentially) remove the creature’s primary sensory organs. This particular harvestman brightened an otherwise disastrous day at the truck yard, and though I’m loathe to immortalize that day in any way whatsoever, I’m not willing to completely ignore a rather cooperative (and photogenic) harvestman at rest on, of all things, spongy-foam from within a dental chair cushion. I have no idea how long the spongy-foam was there, but it was an unrecognizable bit of truck yard debris. It resembled an odd/undiscovered species of fungus more than anything else, and smelled—not unexpectedly—of wet, muddy soil with just a tinge of decay, and maybe just a hint of eau de Rover, as I found the foam (and its attendant harvestman) near a spot that the senior truck yard dog often uses as his message board. I find that I like the organic impression of the spongy padding as mush as I like the truly organic (and infinitely cooperative) harvestman. As always, thank you for viewing, reading, and commenting, and I hope you’re all having a great week. I hope to change jobs quite soon, but as it stands, dentists have decided to become incredibly flaky in terms of scheduling moves and/or the purchase of new equipment (or the throwing out of old stuff) and so there’s no real telling when I’m actually supposed to have a day off (or on, for that matter.) Hopefully, I’ll be able to comment as much as I’d like, but for now, rest assured that I’m looking at everything, even if I’m not able to comment immediately.