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Sprucie Bonus!
Posted by Graeme Lyons , Wednesday 11 December 2019 21:22
This is the final part of my spidering trip to the south east and the plot twist that makes every good season finale. We headed up on to the edge of Bodmin to a woodland site called Cardinham Woods.
First up though, we pulled into a garden centre for a quick lifer! Achaearanea tepidarorium.
Right back to the woods and Tylan found me another life in about five seconds, Cryphoeca silvicola at the top of the post. And nearby the commonest spider I hadn't seen this year, Tegenaria sylvestris. Then we climbed the hill through spruce plantation but the ground flora was dominated by bramble and not very interesting. A bit higher and we found some heather regenerating in a clearfel area and it was almost totally devoid of spiders. Then a nice warm south-facing heathy bank. Almost totally devoid of spiders. I did find what I believe is Brown Snail Zenobiella subrufescens that I have been looking at on the front of the atlas for the last ten years.
We spent a good hour and a half finding next to nothing. Then, a dark and dank spruce plantation that was freezing cold beckoned. There was no light. No vascular plants BUT a carpet of bryophytes. It looked just like the end scenes of Under the Skin.
We needed to use our phone torches to see despite clear skies a few metres away. I started sieiving Thuidium tamariscinum and that's where ALL the linys were!
In less than an hour we added loads of new species. Four for my year list, three of which were lifers for me! Best of all was this Centromerus serratus, nationally rare and new to Cornwall!
Gongylidiellum latebricola (nationally scarce) was abundant there, only the 2nd time I have seen this and new for the year. Lots of Monocephalus were present and both castanipes (nationally scarce) and fulvipes were present. Also there were plenty of Coelotes atropos, Macrargus rufus and a few nice things that Tylan took. A weird pale liny turned out to be Porrhomma pallidum (a lifer - thanks to Tylan for the photo below) and on the way back down the hill, Walckenaeria alticeps (nationally scarce) and another lifer. It was remarkable how much there was compared to the heath. Quite counter intuitive. Anyway, a massive thanks to everyone but especially to Tylan and Matt. I am very pleased with 367 spiders, I hope this is going to be an opportunity to push this up a little more though.
Here is the full list for the weekend, 91 species in all with 21 (22%) having conservation status. Which show just how much there is to see even in the middle of winter. I had 16 lifers (species in bold) and 18 species new for the year! What's remarkable though is that a quarter of the 367 species of spider I have seen this year I saw in a long weekend in December!!!
| Achaeranea simulans | |
| Achaeranea tepadorium | |
| Agroeca cuprea | NR |
| Amaurobius fenestralis | |
| Amaurobius similis | |
| Anelosimus vittatus | |
| Anyphaenea accentuata | |
| Araneus diadematus | |
| Bathyphantes gracilis | |
| Centromerita concinna | |
| Centromerus dilutus | |
| Centromus serratus | NR |
| Ceratinella brevipes | |
| Cercidia prominens | NS |
| Clubiona corticalis | |
| Clubiona genevensis | NR |
| Cnephalocotes obscurum | |
| Coelotes atropos | |
| Crustulina guttata | |
| Cryphoeca silvicola | |
| Cryptachaea blattea | |
| Dictyna latens | |
| Dipoena inornata | NS |
| Dolomedes fimbriatus | NS |
| Episinus angulatus | |
| Episinus maculipes | NS |
| Eratagina saeva | |
| Erigone atra | |
| Erigone dentipalpis | |
| Euophrys frontalis | |
| Euophrys herbigrada | NR |
| Gnaphosa occidentalis | NR |
| Gnathonarium dentatum | |
| Gonatium rubens | |
| Gongylidiellum latebricola | NS |
| Gongylidiellum vivum | |
| Harpactea hombergi | |
| Hypsosinga sanguinea | NS |
| Labulla thoracica | |
| Lepthyphantes leprosus | |
| Lepthyphantes minutus | |
| Macrargus rufus | |
| Mangora acalypha | |
| Meioneta mollis | NR |
| Meioneta rurestris | |
| Metellina mengei | |
| Metellina merianae | |
| Micrommata virescens | NS |
| Microneta viaria | |
| Minyriolus pusilus | |
| Monocephalus castaneipes | NS |
| Monocephalus fuscipes | |
| Neon reticulatus | |
| Neottiura bimaculata | |
| Neriene clathrata | |
| Neriene montana | |
| Neriene peltata | |
| Nesticus cellulanus | |
| Nigma puella | NS |
| Nophothantes horridus | NR |
| Padiscura pallens | |
| Palliduphantes pallidus | |
| Pelecopsis susannae | |
| Philodromus dispar | |
| Pholcomma gibbum | |
| Pholcus phalangioides | |
| Phrurolithus festivus | |
| Phylloneta sisyphia | |
| Pisaura mirabilis | |
| Porrhomma pallidum | |
| Savignya frontata | |
| Segestria bavaraica | NR |
| Steatoda nobilis | |
| Taranuncus setosus | NS |
| Tegenaria sylvestris | |
| Tenuiphantes alacris | |
| Tenuiphantes cristatus | |
| Tenuiphantes tenuis | |
| Tenuiphantes zimmermanni | |
| Theridion varians | |
| Theridiosoma gemmosum | NS |
| Thyreosthenius parasitcus | |
| Tiso vagans | |
| Uloberus plumipes | |
| Walckenaeria alticeps | NS |
| Walckenaeria nodosa | NS |
| Walckenaeria nudipalpis | |
| Xystcius erraticus | |
| Zilla diodea | |
| Zora spinimana | |
| Zygiella x-notata |
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