The Lyons Share

Yes I did just make a word up as a tenuous attempt at a pun. Live with it. Last November I went spidering to the New Forest with Mark Gurney to a National Trust site called Ibsley Common. We found some nice things that had not been seen in the Forest for some time, such as Hypselistes, Taranuncus and Notioscopus. All nice bog species but not much that I hadn't already seen that year. In fact my only year tick I think was Oedothorax fuscus. But I did sweep a smart looking immature Philodromus from Bog Myrtle in a bog under some pines. I became convinced that it was going to be Philodromus emarginatus despite that the fact that I had never seen it. Maybe it was the large flock of Hawfinches that just made you feel like everything there was going to be rare but I had a nagging hunch that I couldn't shift.

Here is the photo of I took in the field at the end of November.

I consulted a few people but knew what the answer was going to be. I needed to get it to adulthood. Further to this Peter Harvey said "I can see nothing much to see emarginatus is a strong contender". So, I HAD to get it to maturity, as I really felt like this was very different to all the Philodromus I had seen before, including the washed out margaritatus that occur at Graffham Common. Perhaps buxi was closest but that was a long way away in London and given that there were two records of emarginatus from the exact same 10 km square, that seemed most likely. Occam's Razor and all that.

I fed the little fella up on springtails from leaf litter in the garden and it did really well, surprisingly reaching adulthood today. The frustrating thing is that the left palp did not come out of the skin when it last shed its skin (it shed its skin twice by the way). So here are some more shots of the nationally rare and Vulnerable Philodromus emarginatus, the 392nd spider I saw last year but the one I can't count either on last year's list, or this year's. Man, this is one gorgeous spider.

Persistence always pays off. Looking at the SRS page it's not been recorded since 2015 and Mark Gurney says the only other records for a National Trust site were from Lavington in West Sussex where it was last seen in 1996. The last Hampshire and New Forest record was from the same 10 km square in 1999. Very cool and the only good thing about the 31st January 2020. Now I wish I had got that female Enoplognatha from Cornwall to adulthood all those years ago but that's another story...

Before I found myself sucked into the inescapable gravitational pull of Black Hole at Burton Pond, I headed to Iping Common to MAX OUT ON MY SPIDER YEAR LIST! There, I've said it. I'm year-listing spiders again apparently. Anyway yesterday was awesome. From Iping and Burton I recorded 65 species of spider which from mid winter on a frosty day I think is pretty smart. I got TWO lifers out of it. Neither were from Iping. Iping was great for some big impressive spiders I would normally expect to see in autumn, such as an adult Ero tuberculata above (looks like another new record for January). This adult female Agroeca proxima. 

Other charismatic mega fauna included Marpissa muscosa.

Nuctenea umbratica. I don't think I have ever noticed their weird eye arrangement before.

Clubiona corticalis with the above two on the same tree.

And a Cream-streaked Ladybird just to keep my eye in with the beetles.

I had collected tons of linys which it turned out were going to be mostly unexciting species. The Sphagnum areas at Iping were yielding nothing so by about 1.30 pm I found myself sucked into the Black Hole at Burton Pond.

A year on I was very much aware how much my spider field craft, especially with money spiders, had moved on. I was ticking off things such a Sintula corniger, Taranuncus setosus, even female Notioscopus sarcinatus (I did check these). In addition immature Theridiosoma gemmosum and Rugathodes instabilis. Black Hole really is a gem and recent work that Jane Willmott has done there is clearly having a great benefit to the site by keeping it more open. An an adult Platnickina tincta was a bit of a surprise too.

Oh and Demetrias monostigma. If you are finding this beetle, you are on a good site for spiders. And beetles. I only ever see it in old Greater Tussock-sedge and Marram tussocks.

It wasn't until I got home though that I realised I had found something rather good.

Here is Centromerus brevivulvatus. Last seen in the UK in West Sussex in 1998 by Dick Jones at Durford Heath. It's Endangered and Nationally Rare. Only ever known from seven 10 km squares, four of which are in Sussex. Interestingly one of these is Iping Common where it was last seen in 1969. This record though is an entirely new 10 km square making eight 10 km squares, five of which are in Sussex! Oddly only this week I assessed this species as a 'Sussex rare species' and thought to myself "I should get out there and have a look at Durford Heath."

Have a look at the SRS page for it here. Here is the map. Look at all those 'x's.

The singularity that is the Black Hole opened up an Einstein-Rosen Bridge to 1998. What was I doing then? This:

I didn't know anything about spiders then, but I did look a lot more like a spider than I do now. I'd have been half way through my astrophysics degree at Sussex Uni at this point (that's not the name of a hipster ale by the way {hipsters didn't exist then} - in the above image I am halfway through a pint of Hoegaarden).

Anyway, back to Black Hole. One of the next spiders I looked at I only recently ticked off up north. I was amazed to find a male Aphileta misera. This seems to be a species new to West Sussex, the last Sussex record from Ashdown Forest was in 1970. So where was I in 1970? Well I was an unconstituted smear of matter across the Staffordshire landscape, with smaller clusters peppered around the world depending on where my mother's food would come from some seven years later. Some of my carbon might even have been sequestered by spiders at that point, probably the bits that would one day make up my neurons. We have all been there!

And also new for me was Diplocephalus permixtus. A species I was expecting to see up north. Turns out this is the first West Sussex record since 1944 and Sussex record since 1999.

Now I did quite a bit of recording at both these sites last year and it really does go to show how important repeat visits are. With just shy of 10% of the UK fauna seen in a single day I will not be doing any recording now until next weekend.

On Monday I went up to see Mark Telfer about buying a microscope off him after discovering quite by chance he was selling one. No point driving 100 miles to see an old friend without some natural history though, so we were soon heading over to Whipsnade Zoo. A month after the Black-throated Thrush was first seen there. I like to think of this as 'danger twitching', waiting as long as you possibly can before going for the bird. It was an effortless twitch and I took this absolutely stunning photo. My first new British bird since the Elegant Tern in 2016. This is a really awesome bird and deserves more than this but this just isn't his story.

Then we went into the butterfly house. Now I have done very little in hothouses, my only attempt was at the BMIG excursion to Wisley Garden Centre. I was a little bewildered by how many species Mark was finding, such as these impressive molluscs which Mark identified as Subulina octona. My completely steamed up camera and hand lens were making me feel out of my depth.

The spiders seemed a bit more do-able. A single large Ulobrous plumipes and dozens of Achaearanea tepidariorum (with some adults of both sexes) were present along with a few familiar Pholcus phalangiodes. Mark picked up a couple of little orange things that looked very like Oonops which I suggested they were. I couldn't find one beyond a very small immature. Then I noticed something scrambling around in the leaf litter. Possibly a parasitic wasp, I just about got it into a tube to see it was a tiny ant mimic type thing that was clearly an adult male. I vaguely remembered there being something of this shape in the new book and a quick look through and I thought I wouldn't be far off calling this Coleosoma floridanum.

I was very excited to get home and see it hadn't been seen since 2005. What a strange beast, hard to believe it's a theridiid. This animal was just over 2 mm long. It has a strange peg on the underside of the abdomen, two serrated projections at the front of the abdomen, a strange cleft in the top and two undulations underneath. 

Yet the fun didn't stop there, turns out the Oonops type things were not one of our two Oonops. Mark thinks it could possibly be Triaeris stenaspis. The really odd looking abdomen and long patella of the first leg would add up. It's turned up in hothouses in Europe and apparently at some point in the UK. Thanks to Mark for this research, image and an awesome day! I do think it would be great if the SRS had distribution maps for all spiders that are surviving in places like this in the UK. They might not be able to survive outside but they are very much breeding here and not under anyone's control (i.e. they are not pets). Are they really any different to Uloborus plumipes? I can see the appeal now and I think I will be doing some more hothouses soon!

Which leaves one question: Hypothetically speaking, if one was year-listing spiders, would this species count on one's list? Hypothetically speaking obviously.

(One is on 38 species).

*I AM DEFINITELY NOT YEAR LISTING SPIDERS*.

I noticed just the other day that my next post would be my 1000th! I have nearly been blogging for ten years and blocking up people's feeds with gibberish about wildlife for so long I can't remember not doing it. DID I used to NOT write this blog? I can't be sure. Can anyone remember not reading it? 

I had an interesting day doing some casual recording at Castle Hill on the edge of Brighton in my home 10 km square today. It's the first time I have gone out with my suction sampler for ages, well for 12 days to be precise. An electric suction-sampler is such a great way to terminate boring conversation in the field, just turn it on and instantly your friend's incessant monologues are drowned out as you collect a hat full of spiders! It's the gift that keeps on giving. (Carole, I only wrote this because you said my blogs used to be funny, I didn't mean it. I could still hear you).

I was trying not to focus just on spiders but I kind of found myself focusing rather a lot just on spiders. Carole Mortimer was keen to spend some time at an NNR with me recording spiders so we did just that and I managed 28 species, 18 of which were new to the 10 km square. I feel quite embarrassed by that as I live in it and did quite a bit of spider recording last year. The species above is the nationally scarce/S.41 Ozyptila nigrita. It's fairly regular on the chalk in the summer but I have never seen it in January before as an adult, no one has it would seem looking at the scheme. Both male and female were present today. I didn't see this until mid April last year. These warm winters are odd.

I took a  load of linys home and amazingly got a lifer! So a species I clearly didn't see last year. A female Diplocephalus picinus. Not scarce but clearly not common in Sussex.

And earlier, another spider that I have only recorded twice, both at 450 m in the Peak District and never in Sussex. The first Sussex record of Poeciloneta variegata since 2007 (and the first East Sussex one since 2004).

Here is today's list with those in bold new to the 10 km square and cons statuses in brackets. The four scarce things are all good chalk-grassland species.

So if you make a site list of spiders (28), add it to the spiders you have recorded in your flat this year (3), apparently that's year-listing spiders but as I said earlier, I AM DEFINITELY NOT YEAR-LISTING SPIDERS.

I end the day on 31 spiders for the year 

(BUT I AM NOT YEAR-LISTING SPIDERS, THAT'S JUST THE TOTAL OF ALL THE SPECIES OF SPIDER I HAVE SEEN THIS YEAR).

I recorded 391 species of spider in 2019 and 88 of these were lifers. December proved to be the best month of all where I added 42 species and 38 of these were lifers! 21 lifers in Staffs and 16 on the trip to the West Country. Here are my top ten spider highlights in reverse order:

11. My first ever Singa hamata
I had literally just met a new client at a site in Hampshire and in the first sweep net full was this Singa hamata. Being much larger than I expected it to be and not remotely on my radar for the site, I squealed "What the @*&! is that!". Turns out it's the first Hampshire record since 1991.

It was great meeting up with Matt, Chris and others at Rye Harbour, Camber Sands and Castle Water and we added shed loads of species to our year lists in the time we were there. Such as this female Pellenes tripunctatus.

I pushed up the total number of species recorded on Sussex Wildlife Trust's reserves to exactly 400 species by the end of 2019 and Graffham Common shines out as a brilliant spider site, including probably the best place I know to find Araniella displicata.

With 220 species and 55 with conservation status, Iping Common is confidently the top spider site in Sussex. Probably the best day there was in spring when I recorded Mecopisthes peusi (last recorded there in 1968 and in Sussex in 1989). Additionally, I also recorded Tapinocyba mitis on the same day in late February. It was around this point that I had started throwing some time and energy into year listing spiders and was really getting into it.

Probably the most unexpected spider of the year. I was heading rapidly across a site to do a survey and saw what I thought was a Scotophaeus blackwalli. It was actually the first Sussex Haplodrassus silvestris since 1908.

5. Finding Scotina palliardii twice in West Sussex. 

A single animal at Levin Down on my birthday and 16+ at Kingley Vale in mid Deecmber. The first Sussex records for some time with only one known record with a vague date for Shoreham.

Meeting up with Matt for only the second time in 2019 but this time on his turf got me a shed load of ticks and it was great to meet up with John Walters too who took us right up to four Nothophantes horridus.

Tylan Berry took me to Kynance Cove on the Lizard and we recorded five national rarities in an hour and four of these were new to me, I think the highlight for me was finding an adult female Segestria bavarica under the second rock I turned over but the rarest would be the Gnaphosa occidentalis.

I couldn't have done it without the big twist at the end of the year. I went on holiday by mistake. Didn't think my final move would be quite as successful as it was but the trip to the Roaches where I had five lifers (and the following day at Gun Moor where I had another six) was awesome and without these two days specifically it would have been a different result. Finding some real upland species like this Porrhomma montanum under the first rock I looked at was really lucky up the Roaches. I can't believe I just said my highlight of the year was a Porrhomma. It was the whole experience, not just this spider though. The Roaches are just breathtaking. Schwingmoor is so much fun and I can't get enough of all that Sphagnum. Low cloud can do one though.