I had a fantastic year in 2024, with all of the surveys I have written up so far returning record numbers of invertebrate species — yet many other people reported the opposite, showing that the truth of what is going on with our invertebrates is far more complex than the "invertebrate apocalypse" that some people claim we are experiencing. At the time of writing, I still have 400 tubes of inverts to go and have already entered 52,993 records of c3,900 species — I will definitely beat my record of c55,000 records last year. Here is a map of my recording in 2024, pleased to see I did more recording in my home hectad than anywhere else.
As I am closing in on 10,000 UK species I am pleased to see that I am still adding something like 400 new species a year. Many of these were incredible wildlife highlights of large, charismatic animals. Not the tiny 1 mm beetles I thought would dominate the lifers at this stage.
So what were the highlights? Here they are in reverse order.
10). A few lifers in my back garden. I love that after 35 years of mothing I can still get new species by pressing a button on a wall and waiting eight hours. At the top of this blog is my first Golden Twin-spot and here, my first Plumed Fan-foot.
9). 1500 species challenge. The reason this didn't score higher is we failed to achieve it and it was HARD. We (Dave Green and I) did however, record and identify 1,158 species (of which 622 were invertebrates) in a 24-hour period of continuous recording and raised just shy of £3,000 for Sussex Wildlife Trust. We also made some really valuable records, like this Pilemostoma fastuosa and Brown Hairstreak larva.
8). The first Midia midas in the UK in 12 years! A brief trip with Esmond Brown to Burnham Beeches resulted in me finding the first Midia midas in the UK in 12 years. I was not expecting a sub-adult male to be identifiable but they really are. The palps are very large and have distinct protrusions in all the right places.
7). Writing this book about pan-species listing. I have only just sent off my manuscript to the publisher, so a long way to go yet but PSL is going from strength-to-strength. We have a new website (you can sign up for free here). Mike, Andy and I have put a lot of time in over the last 18 months to make this site work really well, I love it. We also ran a stall at Global Bird Fair (doing it again this year) and Mark Lawlor designed this new logo! It's a great time to be into pan-species listing. My list currently stands at 9,223 species! I am perhaps two years away from 10,000 UK species. There are more people on the main rankings on the new site in less than a year than there were on the old site after 10 years! Check it out. BTW, the only reason this isn't higher up my top ten is how much I didn't enjoy writing until the last three months.
6). Surveying Burton Pond for Sussex WT. I am still to write this one up but there were some great highlights from this survey. My first record of Light Crimson Underwing (the larva) and the small malachite beetle Cerapheles terminatus was new to Sussex.
5). Two species new to the British Isles; the beetle Colotes maculatus at Chyngton Brooks in East Sussex and the bug Geocoris megacephalus from Jersey.
4). Surveying a dairy farm in West Sussex. I think perhaps a dairy farm was the site I was looking forward to surveying the least but it proved to be the standout survey of the year. I made 5,068 records of 1,237 species (of which 893 were invertebrates). It ended up being the largest list of inverts of any survey I have done. Here is a collage of some of the highlights. And a close up of the spider Hyptiotes paradoxus.
3). Surveying Castle Hill and the Down east of Brighton. Still to be written up yet but I had some fantastic time on the farmland and Downs east of Brighton. Discovering a new population of Wart-biters was a real surprise. Other highlights included the rare weevil Tychius polylineatulus, lots of Early Spider-orchids and my first record of the moth the Wormwood (as a larva).
2). A fishing trip off Brighton. This was just sublime! Undulate Ray, Starry Smooth Hound and Common Squid.
1). Jersey rock pooling. This was just the most magic thing ever. I couldn't get enough of all the nudibranchs. Here are just a few of the highlights Facelina auriculata, Parasitic Anemone and Green Ormer. But it was the immature Spiny Squat Lobster that got away before I could photograph it that stole the show.
And just because I can, here are nine nudibranchs! Five of these were in Jersey rockpools (the other four were from Eastbourne). I have now seen 12 species of nudibranch, I would like to see more of them.
So, I have just ticked what seems to be quite a rare sea slug, Trapania maculata. Four years after I took the photos at The Pound in Eastbourne. How then did this happen? Probably easiest to give a timeline. In reverse.
Oct 2023: I went out sea-fishing and took lots of photos of line caught fish and then put them somewhere 'safe' for future Graeme to find.
Aug 2020: In my weird year of hanging around with TinyRecorder, I went to The Pound for a rock-pooling session with him. I was keen to refind the amazing Polycera quadrilineata I had found in Mar 2019. To my amazement, I found one quickly and took a series of poor photos, little did I know it was actually the much scarcer Trapania maculata until I find the files four years later and in the intervening time, develop an obsession with nudibranchs. Here are the best shots I took of it and the one featuring Tiny last.
I wish I had got a better photo but this is good enough to clinch the ID. It has that odd equilateral triangle on the back, more yellow on the siphonophores (which are a different shape, with a thin bit at the end), lacks the six tentacles at the front of Polycera, four yellow appendages at the sides like folded up legs (instead, just two larger and less yellow ones at the back) and overall looks quite different.
March 2019: Here's Polycera quadrilineata so you can see how I could have made the mistake. Especially when your're specifically looking for one amazing looking yellow and white sea slug in the exact same place you've found it before, in the exact same way (sweep netting weed in the lagoon). Anyway, the water was really murky when I saw the Trapania too, unlike in March when I found the actual Polycera.
A quick look on the NBN and there are only 24 records for Trapania maculata, where as for most of the other 11 species of nudibranch I have seen there are usually over a 1,000 or in a few cases, hundreds. I am so pleased as this could have remained unnoticed for ever. And I have really missed the nudibranchs since getting back from Jersey. What is most odd, I had lost all memory of this encounter until I saw the photos. As I did very little blogging in 2020, but lots of TinyRecorders which are lost in Facebook, I have not remembered many of these wildlife encounters in the same way I normally would.
Anyways, proper stoked with this find! Also a massive shout out to Bernard Picton & Christine Morrow's for their laminated book of dreams, AKA Nudibranchs of Britain, Ireland and Northwest Europe. I would not have got to the ID so quickly today without it. I love this book and I think spending time just flicking through it recently is why I clocked that as being different instantly today but didn't notice at all four years ago.
Right, need to find that Black Sea-bream photo now...
I know right! "WTF is that?!", I hear you say. Well, I literally put that image at the start to suck you in. You'll have to wait until the end to find out what this grubby fluffkin is.
This is my second post on the trip to Jersey and this one is just about the spiders. I'll do a third one on all the other inverts soon. I believe I recorded some13 spiders new to Jersey, of which six were new to the Channel Islands (one of these was actually in 2017 but I only found out about that last night).
First up, the first time I got my little tray out, produced Heliophanus tribulatus - a spider that turned out to be widespread on the island (and is known from Jersey). This was a lifer for me and a great start. The females are very orange-legged (not yellow) and most of the spider is covered in golden hairs (a jersey-wearing jumper on Jersey). It has just two spots on the abdomen that often merge to form a band (and another further back). I bet it will be in the UK soon. I don't think I ever found it by suction, beaten from Pellitory-of-the-wall on old sunny walls and sometimes from Gorse.
And the male, quite like Heliophanus kochii in terms of the white-spotted legs and palps but lacking the four spots on the abdomen and the dark tip (where the hairs are absent). The palp is bonkers. This shouldn't be too difficult to spot if it turns up here, unless it already has and I am behind the times. The specimen in the tray at the bottom has some white on the abdomen but it is situated further back.
A short trip around the coastal cliffs near where we stayed and in among the dozens of Macaroeris nidicolens that are on nearly every tree and wall and I spotted something different. Dendryphantes rudis, another jumping spider lifer! This an immature. Very distinct pattern on the abdomen.
And here an adult male with much less of a distinct pattern. Very leggy this one.
And the only other spider lifer I had out there (bringing my British Isles spider list up to 547 species) was Zelotes longipes (this species is listed as Nationally Rare in the UK, where it has not been recorded since 2015). I found a male and a female in Les Blanches Banques. I should add that I had to get a permit from the government to take a small number of specimens from their SSIs there.
I saw one Attulus saltator there too, always a pleasure to see this dweeb. Anyone else think they look like Ralph Wiggum? No? Just me then. I also saw a pair of Myrmarachne formicaria in the dunes (so much cool stuff to see that I didn't even get a photo of them).
And here is a Macaroeris nidicolens. They are incredibly abundant there in all sorts of habitats. I remember ticking this spider there in 2017 on Jersey, it was in the dunes at Ouaisne.
So what were the 13 species I hear you say? Well, here's the list of the six that were new to the Channel Islands (as far as I can tell). Big shocker here with the first one!
Macaroeris nidicolens! - not kidding when I say it's on every Gorse bush.
Anyphaenea numida - from just north of Mont Orgueil Castle. This thing is spreading and fast!
Lasaeola prona - from the cliff tops at Gorselands.
Scotina gracilipes - this adult female from Portelet Common.
Acartauchenius scurrilus - an adult male, also vacced from coastal grassland at Portelet.
Agroeca cuprea - from several areas in the dunes around Les Blanches Banques!
Spiders I seemingly had new to Jersey were...
Ero aphana
Episinus truncatus
Enoplognatha mandibularis
Metopobractus prominulus
Gnathonarium dentatum (?!)
Phaeocedus braccatus (at Gorselands on the cliffs)
Xysticus sabulosus (common at Les Blanches Banques)
Most of these are likely to be unrecorded residents that have been here for a very long time while some (like Anyphaenea numida) are likely very recent arrivals. Jersey is great for so many species groups and the relative lack of spider recording that has happened here means there is plenty to still be found.
I had a great evening at Gorselands meeting up with Tim Ransom (thanks to Karen for the photos).
There were LOADS of Gnaphosa there (and later, also at Portelet). All sub-adults. I am going to try and rear some but I have had to send some to Ty too as I am not good at rearing spiders. Fingers crossed though.
The other spider that is common there but not in the UK, is Gibbaranea bituberculata. Here are a few of them. I saw just one back in 2017.
And Porrhoclubiona genevensis is all over the shop. Yes, in cliff grassland like in Cornwall but I also had them in dunes and in Reed litter!
Finally, I have saved my favorite until last. Anyone remember me find this at Portelet in 2017? The insane looking Heriaeus mellotteei.
I really wanted to find it again but instead, I picked up what must be its spiderlings in the vac and boy, are they crazy little abominable snow-spiders! If there ever was a spider that looks like it's wearing a jersey, it's this!
I have not identified everything yet though but I don't think there will be any more surprises. Now I need to get back to the book...
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