An Alternative Natural History of Sussex.
This blog shows the highlights of my day to day findings as a naturalist and ecologist living and working in Sussex. Delivered with a pinch of nihilism, a dash of sarcasm and absolutely no tweeness, here is my attempt to show natural history as it really is: Brutal, beautiful, uncompromising and fascinating...and occasionally ridiculous.
I have been studying natural history for some thirty years, nineteen in a professional capacity. I currently work in Sussex as a freelance entomologist, ecologist and botanist and specialise in nature reserve and rewilding management advice based on the interpretation of the surveys I carry out. I also run a number of identification courses. An advocate of the pan-species listing approach. My main areas of interest are birds, plants and invertebrates and a lot of my spare time is spent in the field. I am the county recorder for spiders and bugs.
Rained off again yesterday and most of today it would seem. Frustrating how quickly you can get behind after being ahead. But an opportunity to do some spider recording it was (they are less effected by weather than a lot of other taxa and if you pick the right habitat, the problems of wet vegetation that stop a full survey can be minimised). So I got in touch with Amberley Museum and got access to a few areas of Amberley Chalk Pit. I had two targets in mind; Iberina candida and Eratigena picta. I failed to find both (well, I might have an immature of the latter) but I don't care. I found something even rarer. But first, the supporting cast...
Almost the first rock I turned over had a Zodarion retreat underneath it! Never actually seen this before so was pretty pleased. I found two females of what is Zodarion italicum. I have records for this at Shoreham Beach but they are not in my database for some reason, other than that this is only the second West Sussex record.
A real surprise for me was this stunning Xerolycosa nemoralis. I have only ever seen this on bare sandy ground on heaths. Its nationally scarce and a new 10 km square record. It just shows that spiders will use any structural type that is analogous to what they need. The soil here is exposed and friable, a successional state of old quarries that is quite uncommon. Many are vegetated over, mossy or with a tight sward. Not so here.
Moving to the scree generated some excitement. I spent an hour trying to catch an adult of what I thought was going to be Eratigena picta. It was Tegenaria silvestris. Bugger. A clearly very different looking spider but in the heat of the moment, I was rather excited. It was still new for the year, however!
Scree is hard to work. My suction sampler was useless here. All I had was my hands. I found Hahnia nava and montana but no Iberina candida either. I did see plenty of Palliduphantes pallidus.
And found some nice adult Mitostoma chrysomelas.
And a huge golden yellow liny that escaped me. Only to resurface some 30 minutes later. I am extremely persistent. It was Saaristoa abnormis. Only the second time I have seen it and my first male/Sussex specimen and a new 10 km square.
Rosy Woodlouse was extremely common under stones there.
And who needs pheromones when you have a suction sampler? Six-belted Clearwing sucked off the chalk!
Walking around the old buildings in the Museum, the UK's biggest jumping spider, Marpissa muscosa, caught my eye.
But it wasn't until I got home and looked at the specimens that things got really exciting. A little yellow thing about 1.5 mm (that I have to say, I have no memory of collecting) jumped out immediately as a Centromerus when I clocked the epigyne, and not one I recognised either. I just wanted to completely rule out Centromerus serratus, so asked Tylan for a second opinion and he kindly sent me a photo of an epigyne and I was happy to rule it out then (he sees that more than me and I don't have a specimen of the female). It was Centromerus albidus! Critically Rare, Nationally Rare and get this...not seen in the UK since 1969!!! So this made up for not finding the targets as this is significantly rarer and totally unexpected. It's also new to Sussex and you can find out more on the SRS page here.
The page mentions Beech woods, so this is a totally different habitat to the old sites.
I got seven new spiders for the year, ending on 312 (including Tetragnatha obtusa and only my second ever Troxochrus scabriculus - EDIT, it wasn't Troxochrus. it was Entelecara flavipes). Here is a list of the species seen that had conservation status.
Centromerus albidus - NR/CR
Drassyllus lutetianus - NS
Marpissa muscosa - NS
Zodarion italicum - NS
Xerolycosa nemoralis - NS
Entelecara flavipes - NS
Six-belted Clearwing - Nb
Orthochaetes setiger - Nb
It was very kind of the Museum to let me access this fantastic site. It's not a public access site though, and is dangerous without a brief, so please don't go there without talking to the Museum. One thing I am sure of, there is more to be found at this amazing site and I will be back.
So what better way to celebrate than with some Mouse Rat?
Yesterday was a significant day for me. Twenty years since I started my career in conservation, at Dungeness RSPB Reserve. So I took the day off the day before, to go spider hunting to Surrey. I have decided that year-listing spiders is on again this year. So I have notched up my efforts in the last few weeks. I headed out to Surrey, to Whitley Common that I know well and to two sites I have never been to be for. Chobham and Whitmoor Commons, both Surrey Wildlife Trust reserves. All in all, I recorded 86 species of spider in one day, which I was pretty pleased with.
I'll start with Whitmoor Common, where I found a couple of the amazing Cheiracanthium pennyi (Nationally Rare/Endangered), very much restricted to a few Surrey heaths, not seen away from Surrey heaths since the 1990s it would seem. Look at this beauty! That's a lifer for me.
And of course, no trip to a Surrey heath is complete without Oxyopes heterophthalmus (Nationally Rare/Vulnerable). Rather pleased with this first shot.
Then on to Gracious Pond for my second lifer of the day. Calositticus caricis (Nationally Rare/Section 41). Took a little while to find but found two females thanks to Mike Waite's gen.
Whilst searching, I found a few other nice goodies here. What seems to be the first Theonoe minutissima in Surrey since 1987. Agyneta cauta and Aphileta misera was also in the area, both new for the year.
Evarcha arcuata is common across all these sites.
And here he is with his mate, Evarcha falcata on the left.
Witley Common now, a site I looked at quite a bit last year. So was pleased to pick up a load more spiders with status there. Such as this impossible to photograph Theridion pinastri. A species that is really spreading in the south east and does not seem too tied to any particular habitat.
This male Neriene furtiva was a real cracker. The males have these really odd shaped abdomens, with over-sized palps, making for quite the ant mimic. Very dark too.
And on one pine tree I had Hypositticus pubescens (a surprisingly hard spider to find) and also under there, an adult female Micaria subopaca.
But the real excitement happened when I got home. Four funny looking linys that I swept all in one go were bothering me. Turns out, they were not linys but Dipoena erythropus! I have only seen one male of this spider before, at Southwood Woodland in Hants, amazingly on the 30th June too (back in 2019). This was definitely find of the day and is a whole new 10 km square for this Nationally Rare/Vulnerable spider. The dark body and all-pale legs are quite different to the other 'Dipoena' (or whatever they are called now) species and make it far more like a liny in the field than those species.
But it didn't stop there, I had also picked up a Philodromus emarginatus female without realising it! Yet another Nationally Rare/Vulnerable spider new to the site and the 10 km square. A particularly rich area of Witley sits in the square SU93 (that straddles the Surrey/Sussex boundary). It's a small slither, and as such it has not been well covered but many of the rare species on the site are in this area, meaning that lots of new 10 km square records have happened here. It just shows that you should always remember to check when submitting records exactly where they fall. So, that's 305 spiders for the year with 13 new ones from a single day out. A great way to celebrate 20 years working in conservation.
When I was working at the RSPB, I picked up mini Roberts from Old Moor in Yorkshire on an electro-fishing trip in 2004, I was a little intimidated by all the drawings of palps and epigynes until around 2010, when I became obsessed with spiders. It's amazing how much things can change in a decade. Anyways, here is the full species list from Wednesday (not all the new names are here as it's an output from my database). Species new to the year in bold.
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