SHAKE A LEG

Despite carefully maintaining their eight appendages, harvestmen will part with one to live another day

- Nick Baker

A BUTTON BODY COMES WOBBLING ON impossibly thin legs through the dank autumn vegetation. It is a shame that so few folk bend down to take a closer A look, for though it has eight legs and so might appear to be a spider, it is not. It is an Opilione, or harvestman.

Of the 27 species of Opilione found in the UK, one of the largest and most widespread is Leiobunum rotundum. Like many other invertebrate species, it hatched from eggs in the spring and has been growing up ever since. Now, it is large, fully mature and more visible. Its fondness for dense vegetation probably meant we traditionally encountered it as we brought in the last of the season's crops and hay - a fact that goes some way to explain its common name.