About Dicranopalpus ramosus (Simon, 1909)
Dicranopalpus ramosus (Simon, 1909) is a species of harvestman. Males grow up to 4 mm long, while females can reach up to 6 mm long. Both sexes have very long legs, particularly the second pair of legs which can grow up to 5 cm. The species' pedipalps have a distinct forked appearance, caused by a noticeable elongated apophysis that extends almost to the end of the tibia. Their bodies are brownish with dark markings, and females have lighter colouration than males. This species is easy to identify thanks to its forked pedipalps and its characteristic resting posture, with legs stretched out to the sides. Traditional invertebrate collection methods are not effective for this harvestman: out of 103 individuals captured in Belgium, only one was caught in a pitfall trap, and all other specimens were collected by hand. Adult D. ramosus can be found from August to November. They occur mostly in gardens and on outer building walls, and can sometimes also be found indoors. Originally, this species was native to Morocco. It has since spread across Europe: it was first recorded in Portugal in 1948, then spread to Spain in 1965 and France in 1969. It reached the Netherlands in 1992, and has been recorded in Germany since 2004. As early as 1957, it was recorded in Bournemouth, southern England, and spread across the whole of Great Britain, reaching Scotland in 2000. It has been established across most of Denmark since 2010, and in southern Sweden since 2012. In 2019, an individual photographed by iNaturalist user "kiwikiu" at Cannon Beach, Oregon, indicated that the species had been introduced to the United States. It has been documented multiple times in this local area since that sighting. A very similar, closely related species, D. gasteinensis, is found in the Alps.
