Originally published at: Scientists bio-engineered a Daddy Long Legs to have short legs instead | Boing Boing
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Obligs:
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So now I guess he’s just a Daddy Regular Legs. How sad is that?
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Sounds like the work of Alphonse Mephesto.
Whenever the people in town need help dealing with the supernatural, the extraordinary or the insane, Dr. Mephesto is there with a convoluted, multi-assed solution to their problems.
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Are the new, shorter legs more inclined to stay attached to creature than the stock legs?
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Science + spiders = 
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Scientists bio-engineered a Daddy Long Legs to have short legs instead
FINALLY!!
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Or just a “Daddy”?
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Those scientists are some sick bastards.
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I’m more concerned they’ll help it to move faster… 
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this just seems cruel.
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To answer the “why” questions: making short-legged spiders wasn’t the goal of the study. First of all, the paper includes the first published genome sequence of any species from order Opiliones (which includes thousands of distinct species of daddy longlegs spiders). Having sequenced the genome, researchers then went on to look for the particular genes that are responsible for the distinctive long legs. And generally the easiest way to find out what a gene does is to turn it off and observe what in the organism fails to work as expected. In this case, they identified two genes that are necessary for embryonic proto-legs to develop into proper long legs instead of short pedipalps. The “daddy shortlegs” hatchlings were a side product of this genetic research.
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I’d prefer a spider with no legs.
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omg 
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So…it’s a corgi spider?
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So are these the guys that transformed ‘Harry low pants’?
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Came for Jeff and Ryan. Was not disappointed.
