Grrrr. Been rained off today. I still had a tick though, in my back garden! I turned over some logs in the back garden and was surprised to see a mass of dark sandhoppers jumping all over the place. I'm 80 m above sea level here and about 1.5 miles away from the sea front. It turns out this is easily identifiable as
Arcitalitrus dorrienis. This species was introduced from New Zealand and is usually this dark greyish/purplish colour and is found inland. Also in the garden were lots of smart
Alopecosa pulverulenta males and
Armadillidium depressum.
Here is another male
Clubiona corticalis on the bathroom wall. It has very distinctive balloon-like palps, which are visible in this photo.
I'm back on track for this year's records in my data base now. It seems a real effort to keep it up to date. I only have 825 records on there so far but 'big things come from small beginings'.
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Every time I move garden stuff: stored logs , sacks of detritus etc I disturb lots of these landhoppers nowadays. I can't remember them in the past - other than on beaches & under piles of seaweed. Do you know when they were introduced from NZ?