Feast your eyes on this beauty!

Posted by Graeme Lyons , Thursday 24 March 2011 19:08

This absolute beauty is a heathland specialist spider called Philodromus histrio. I found it at Iping Common during an afternoon off. My afternoon off not the spider's. It's quite a large spider that I thought had the look of a heathland specialist (the legs look a bit like heather and the strongly contrasting colours allow it to blend in amongst the foliage). It is apparently uncommon although the texts say it does not have a conservation status. Either way it's a real stunner and is a welcome addition to my list. 
There were hundreds of these little bugs everywhere today and I thought perhaps that they would be a heathland specialist too. However, I think that this is the Birch Catkin Bug Kleidocerys resedae. I could well have overlooked the heathland specialist Kleidocerys ericae there. There were so many of them that one landed on my screen of my camera as I was taking this photo.
I also saw a female Orange Underwing feeding on sallow but it was too high to photograph and my first Bee-flies of the year. I ended the day on 3177.

2 Response to "Feast your eyes on this beauty!"

Liz_lowlife Says:

He's really well suited to the podzol environment isn't he?
Well camouflaged!

Graeme Lyons Says:

He does look that way! Probably even more so against the heather foliage where I found it but it would have been impossible to get a photo of it there without it running away, never to be seen again!

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