One of the best things about writing this book on pan-species listing has been the research. This is mainly taking the form of travelling to distant lands to meet various listers that I have not yet had the pleasure to meet. And last weekend was such a trip. One of those long PSL weekends where I forgot nearly everything else in the world accept what I was doing. Almost as good as a holiday for the head. Anyways, before I do a full write up of the weekend, I have to write this post separately as it would not do it justice to embed it within one of my larger posts. It's a story ten years in the making and concerns what is best described as being simultaneously my 3rd invertebrate, 2nd spider, 1st invertebrate and 1st spider, that I've had new for the UK. Confused? Me too.
I'll start at the beginning. Rewind nearly a decade and read read this post from a twitch to Cornwall to see a Hermit Thrush on the 31st October 2013. I draw your attention to the spider at the end...a very unusual looking Enoplognatha. Here she is again.
Unsurprisingly, the spider did not make it to maturity. In the last four years since befriending Tylan, we have spoke at length about trying to get back to the exact same section of wall at the car park at Long Rock. Now when I first got to Cornwall on Saturday and I went along the beach with Sally Luker to see the Sea Daffodils at Marazion Dunes, I realised that the car park we were in was the wrong one. Looking along the beach, it did seem that there had been some development here. The crumbly old wall I found the spider in was no longer there. It seemed even more like a long shot, so much so that it was the very last thing I did on Monday morning on the 16th October 2023 and even then I nearly didn't bother.
I ran the suction sampler through the sea defences by the car park, reaching down between the rocks. The vegetation was a mixture of Sea-beet, Bramble agg., Ribwort Plantain and large crucifers - nothing special. I took one suction sample and amazingly, ten years later, found an adult male in the first sample. In fact, there was an immature in there too. It's clearly been established in this area for at least a decade. So what is it?
Well, there is only one species of native Enoplognatha in the UK I have not seen, the rare oelandica, that has not been seen in the UK since 1997. It doesn't seem right for it. In the last couple of years, Tylan has been sent a few specimens of Enoplognatha mandibularis as adventives (and it's also established on the Channel Islands) so we were pretty sure it was going to be this and after looking at the spider in detail, it is indeed Enoplognatha mandibularis, new to the UK on 31st October 2013. How cool is that? My 536th UK spider and 372nd spider of the year! Here are a few more shots of it.
It's quite small, or at least variable in size. Heavily annulated legs and with very large chelicerae. A white v-shaped mark at the front of the abdomen and two white spots further back (making an inverted smiley face!) that's also visible on my 2013 spider (although that immature female is less pied and more tri-coloured).
In the intervening period, I have added over 4000 species to my pan-species list! So much has changed in a decade. Oh, and ten years ago I would have lost it at seeing just one Inflatable Cornish Pasty or Portuguese Man o' War but they were everywhere at Long Rock.
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 |
|
I left the gang in Devon and headed to Cornwall for some spidering action with Tylan on his patch. We headed down to Kynance Cove on the Lizard, I have never been there before. I think the first hour that we spent on the cliffs at Kynance Cove was the highlight of the weekend. We were threatened by a horrendous on shore wind but storm cells that just kept missing us, the wind was battering the coast, you could feel the vibrations at the top of the cliffs! So despite hellish weather all around us, we remained dry. And best of all the spiders lined up to throw themselves at us. Five national rarities in an hour and four of them were lifers for me!
First up Gnaphosa occidentalis. I was really gutted I couldn't get down in the summer but this sub adult male was absolutely stunning. Really solid and tarantula-like with such a chocolatey abdomen. This is one handsome spider. Found under scattered stones on the grassy cliffs.
Then Tylan suggested looking at the cliffs themselves for Segestria bavarica. I found a lightning fast immature that disappeared in a crack. Then on the next rock I lifted up this amazing mature female. This all happened in the space of about ten minutes. This was a really big spider, there are no records for adult females on the recording scheme for December.
It took a little longer to find
Clubiona genevensis (but not much longer). A fairly small
Clubiona under stones, all these species were in a few metres of each other.
Then we got the suction sampler out in the same area and on the third go I got Tylan a rather special lifer. Agroeca cuprea! An adult male and the first record for Cornwall in 51 years! Soon after this we got a young female Euophrys herbigrada that we think is doable even at this stage. I must admit if Tylan had not found them on the site I would not be ticking this species but it certainly looked good to us both. It's much hairier, greyer and with thick white and black hairs that are more in stripes. It's darker with paler stripes rather than paler with a grid of darker markings as in frontalis. We recorded Hypsosinga sanguinea new to Cornwall and picked up another Dipoena inornata.
We carried on looking for linys but nothing exciting came out of the specimens. I found this odd plant in ericaceous tussocks which, with a little help from Mark Gurney, I realised I had stumbled on Hairy Greenweed! A lifer!
And another lifer but one I was expecting, Cornish Heath at long last! I also learnt that although Black Bog-rush forms an impressive tussock, it is very solid and does not accumulate too much plant litter. As such it is an inferior tussock compared to the likes or Purple Moor-grass and Greater Tussock-sedge.
I can't thank Tylan enough for this day, it was a really magic day in the field. Now there is one final write up. Tylan and family were kind enough to let me crash on Sunday night and on Monday we headed to the woods. The whole weekend is looking like a species list of over 80 species! As of today, I am only TWO species behind Matt on 367 species for the year. There are 21 days left in 2019 and it's getting very close...
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