If you’ve spotted a daddy long legs carrying a small bundle of eggs or looking noticeably swollen, you’re almost certainly looking at a female ready to lay eggs or already protecting them. What “pregnant” looks like depends on which creature you’re actually seeing, because “daddy long legs” is a common name shared by three very different animals: cellar spiders, harvestmen, and crane flies. Each one handles reproduction differently.
Which Daddy Long Legs Are You Looking At?
Before figuring out what’s going on with your pregnant-looking visitor, it helps to identify which one you have. Cellar spiders are true spiders with two body segments, eight legs, and messy cobwebs. They’re the ones you find in basements, garages, and corners of rooms. Harvestmen (also called opiliones) look like spiders but have a single round body with no visible waist, and they don’t spin webs. Crane flies are the gangly, mosquito-like flying insects that bump into your windows at night.
All three get called “daddy long legs” depending on where you live. The one most people encounter indoors carrying something that looks like a pregnancy is the cellar spider.
Cellar Spiders Carry Eggs in Their Mouths
If you see a long-legged spider in your home holding a small, loosely wrapped ball of eggs near its face, that’s a female cellar spider. Unlike most spiders that attach their egg sacs to their webs, cellar spiders carry the egg sac in their mouthparts (chelicerae) and hold it there until the eggs hatch. She’ll walk around, hang in her web, and go about her life while gripping this little bundle the entire time.
The egg sac itself is thin and translucent, not a thick silk pouch like you’d see from a garden spider. You can sometimes see the individual eggs through it. She won’t put it down voluntarily. If she drops it or it gets knocked loose, the eggs typically won’t survive.
Before producing the egg sac, a female cellar spider may look visibly swollen in her abdomen as her eggs develop internally. This is the stage where she genuinely looks “pregnant.” Once she wraps the eggs in silk and begins carrying them in her jaws, her abdomen returns to a more normal size.
What Happens After the Eggs Hatch
Once the spiderlings emerge, they’ll cluster near their mother for a short time before dispersing throughout the area. Don’t be alarmed if you suddenly notice dozens of tiny spiders in the same corner. They spread out quickly and most won’t survive to adulthood. Within a few days, the visible cluster breaks up as the young spiders find their own spots to build webs.
Cellar spiders are entirely harmless to people. They’re actually effective at catching other household pests, including mosquitoes, flies, and even other spiders. A female carrying an egg sac is doing exactly what she’s supposed to do, and she’s not a threat to you or your home.
Pregnant Harvestmen Look Different
If you’ve found a round-bodied daddy long legs outdoors that looks swollen, it’s likely a gravid female harvestman. Harvestmen don’t carry their eggs around. Instead, females use a long egg-laying organ called an ovipositor to deposit eggs into protected spots: under tree bark, into soil, or tucked into mulch and leaf litter. You won’t see a harvestman walking around with an egg sac.
A female harvestman that looks unusually plump is carrying eggs internally and hasn’t laid them yet. After mating, some species show an interesting behavior where the male guards the female until she deposits her eggs. In other species, the female herself guards the eggs after laying them until they hatch. This parental care is unusual among arachnids and is one of the more fascinating things about harvestmen biology.
Once a female finds a suitable crevice, she lays eggs singly or in small groups. The young harvestmen that emerge look like miniature versions of the adults and are independent from the start.
Crane Flies With Swollen Abdomens
If the “daddy long legs” you spotted is a flying insect with a fat, pointy abdomen, you’re looking at a female crane fly ready to lay eggs. Female crane flies are easy to distinguish from males because their abdomens taper to a visible point, while males have blunt, rounded abdomens. A female that looks especially swollen is full of eggs she’s about to deposit in soil or moist ground.
Adult crane flies live only a few days. Their entire adult life is dedicated to mating and laying eggs. They don’t eat, and they don’t bite. The swollen appearance is completely normal and short-lived, as she’ll deposit her eggs into damp soil quickly and die shortly after.
What to Do if You Find One Indoors
For a cellar spider carrying an egg sac, the simplest option is to leave her alone. She’s controlling other pests in your home and poses zero risk. If the webs bother you, you can gently relocate her using a cup and piece of paper, though the egg sac is fragile and may not survive the move.
If you’re seeing large numbers of cellar spiders and their webs are becoming a nuisance, regular vacuuming of corners, ceiling joints, and undisturbed spaces removes both webs and egg sacs effectively. Reducing moisture and sealing entry points around windows and doors limits how many find their way inside in the first place.
Harvestmen found indoors can simply be moved outside. They prefer to be outdoors anyway and ended up in your house by accident. Crane flies that wander inside are harmless, short-lived, and can be guided back out through an open window.