The Lyons Share

When spiders look like green cats

Posted by Graeme Lyons , Friday 4 June 2010 18:00

I went to Iping Common today with the spider expert, Andy Phillips. We were putting together some ideas on a methodology we plan to implement next year. I learned a lot in a short space of time and we saw some pretty strange spiders and some pretty scarce ones too. The photograph above is of the abdomen of Gibbaranea gibbosa. We saw a nationally scarce ant mimic spider (Micaria sp.) on a pine tree. There was also a couple of awesome looking jumping spiders, the smart looking Evarcha falacata and the nationally scarce Evarcha arcuata.

I also saw two beetles I had not seen before, the tasty Na click beetle Ampedus sanguinolentus of which there were quite a few and two longhorns known as Pine-stump Borers. Big black/brown things. Also of note was a male Tanyptera and my first ever Mottled Bee-fly. Common Heaths dominated the moth world.

It's bloody hot out there, and dry, but we still found some good things. Crossbills, Tree Pipits, Dartford Warblers, Buzzards, Field Crickets and Yellowhammers provided the sound track. It's an amazing place, go see it!

Posted in beetles, deadwood, flies, Iping Common, moths, spiders