The Lyons Share

I may have got a bit carried away reading up on Denis Villeneuve's 2020 adaptation of Frank Herbert's awesome book Dune yesterday. So when I visited the sand dunes at Camber Sands today to look for spiders, reality and fantasy started to blur. I may have convinced myself just briefly that I was the Universe's super being when this happened...

I can't begin to tell you how excited I was. I have looked for the Nationally Rare Philodromus fallax for about eight years on and of, mainly at this site, but also at sand dunes around the country. I had actually long given up, I was in fact looking for linys today. But I had this weird feeling I needed to try one more tussock before heading round to Camber Sands. Then out it popped from a tussock of dead Marram! Here are some more shots. Much paler than I thought it would be, appeared almost white in the tray.

It was just like the moment Paul Atreides first encountered the Fremen. If only it had blue within blue eyes. Absolutely stoked. I could end the spider listing challenge now and be happy...but I won't. So glad I got a Sussex one. And here was the place, right where it gets trampled by thousands of people, totally different to where I have been looking all this time.

It was a THREE Agroeca today, the only other new spider I had new for the year was Agroeca cuprea. Another Nationally Rare spider that is common at Camber Sands. I saw at least eight today. This is a really nice looking spider. If fallax is a Fremen, this can be Paul Atreides.

In all I recorded 34 species of spider today with lots of species still adults (all those in bold). I end the day on 330 species for the year. Amazed to record as many Nationally Rare species as Nationally Scarce ones. This is a little rushed and not spell-checked.