The Lyons Share

My first season as an almost full time entomologist is drawing to a close. It's been an incredible summer and one of the most exciting surveys has been the East Head survey I carried out for the National Trust in West Sussex. On Saturday I finished the sixth and final visit. It was one of those visits where you don't really feel like you've found very much, until you get home!

First off I thought I had found a new spider for me, being Agroeca inopina. After I got this male home, it was evident that this was actually the much more widespread Agroeca proxima. I did take the time to get some photos though. These late summers spiders look quite like small skinny wolf spiders with slightly wrong proportions. I took a female from a few metres away too. And I was really surprised that that one turned to be Agroeca inopina. This spider was new to me but known from the site. That makes 306 spiders for me this year. I am still way behind Matt. The spiders are done for the site with 13 of the 61 species recorded having conservation status! A whopping 21.3%. Here are the rare and scarce spiders for the site.

Alopecosa cuneata (NS)

Araneus angulatus (NS)

Argenna patula (NS)

Ceratinopsis ramosa (NR)

Crustulina sticta (NS)

Enoplognatha mordax (NS)

Nigma puella (NS)

Pardosa proxima (NS)

Phlegra fasciata (NR)

Sibianor aurocinctus (NS)

Sitticus saltator (NS)

Thanatus striatus (NS)

Zelotes electus (NS)

I could not find Marpissa nivoyii at this site but a more striking absence is that of the wolf spider Xerolycosa miniata which is usually common in sand dunes. This spider remains absent from West Sussex.

I still have 30 tubes of invertebrates to identify over the winter but this survey is definitely one of the most distinctive in terms of its statistics. It's by far the lowest in terms of overall diversity (I'm currently on 298 species) but the proportion of species with conservation status continues to be the highest I have ever surveyed. It's currently at 49 species, that's 16.4%! It was 17.4% after July, 16.2% after August so feels like it's oscillating around this area and won't change massively with the addition of the microscope work.

Under some tidal debris I found this this lively noctuid larva, which I believe to be Sand Dart. A Nb coastal specialist.

Other new species with status for the survey included Protapion difforme, Orthotylus rubidus and Sibinia arenariae. However, the highlight of the day and possibly the whole survey came in the last hour when I ran the suction sampler through some short sandy turf at the end of the dune slack. A funny orange carabid which turned out to be Bradycellus distinctus. This is Nationally Rare and Endangered and Mark Telfer says he can't recall hearing of any records  since he wrote the carabid review in 2016! Last recorded in Sussex was in 2000 at Rye Harbour and only known from there and Camber Sands in Sussex. Here it is!

The next day I was at the Secrets of the Heath event and the first family that came up to look at the inverts in the tray asked "were you at East Head yesterday hoovering up the dunes?"

The Rye Harbour spider trip was awesome. Even if there was only five of us. Chris Bentley showed us around and I made good use of the electric suction-sampler and as ever I learnt lots from Matt and Chris. I added at least nine spiders for the year and got one lifer. It was great to spend some time with Matt too during the 'big year', I hope we get another chance to meet up later this year. Totally forgot to get any pictures of Humans though.

Star of the show was always going to be Pellenes tripunctatus (nationally rare) so I am gonna get that out of the way first so I can focus, that's pretty much what happened yesterday too. Above and below is the male. What a dude!

Other highlights included Enoplognatha mordax and Phlegra fasciata but I didn't manage a photo of these. I saw an adult male Phlegra but it disappeared down a crack in the ground. The kind of crack you'd normally see at the end of summer.

New for me was the nationally scarce Haplodrassus dalmatiensis.

Also we added Trichonchus affinis (nationally rare) and Lathys stigmatisata (nationally rare). I tried to get a few non-spider species new to the site but it's really hard. I did manage a few bugs that had not been recorded since 1989. This weevil Polydrusus pulchellus (Nb) was new for me. I sucked it off the edge of the saltmarsh by targeting Sea-wormwood. I see it has the English name Sea-wormwood Weevil so that makes sense.

We were missing a few jumpers but the weather wasn't great so we headed to Camber Sands...

It took quite a lot of effort to find Marpissa nivoyi but here it is. About equally matched to the Dactylochelifer latreilli.

We also found Cheiracanthium virescens (NS) and Zelotes electus (NS - this was also at Rye Harbour). This one wouldn't keep still so you can have a look at its underside. Some immature Agroeca too. 

I was desperate to see Philodromus fallax. Or the 'f-word' as it is now known. We found several sub-adult Philodromus and despite me trying to convince everyone it was fallax, I am now convinced they weren't either. Putting a spider on sand does not make it fallax. You can see why I got excited though.

A quick dash to Castle Water and we soon saw Trichopterna cito (NR) and Hypsosinga albovittata (NS). That's THREE lifers I found Matt yesterday so no one can say this spider challenge is anything but a civilised affair. I'm hoping there might be a few more coming my way from Matt's dets. The only photo I took at Castle Water was of this Small Copper larva, first time I have ever seen one. Which is nuts because I have seen quite a few adults.

Rye Harbour is an exceptional site and has a huge list of rare and scarce spiders. 

Now a normal person would have gone home happy but I had to try for Euophrys herbigrada on the way home near Eastbourne. I didn't find it but I did get two records that I have only ever had in Ireland and Jersey, both in the suction sampler. The first was Small Plume (which feeds on Mouse-ear Hawkweed - there are only three dots on the map for this species in Sussex) and the second was the bug Capsodes sulcatus which was a first for East Sussex! Last seen in West Sussex in 2002.

It was a great day and I am currently on 266 spiders for 2019!

Jumping spiders are awesome, So awesome in fact that this article can only be read by listening to Van Halen. All jumping spiders permanently have this on on their headphones.

There is however one massive problem with jumping spiders: there are not enough of them. If you count the three accidental species, there are 42 on the list, if not it's just 39. I have been lucky enough to see 28 of these 42 species so far, I'm running out of them!

I have 455 records of jumping spiders in my database. Here they are starting with the species with the most records...

1) Marpissa muscosa (nationally scarce) - 49 records

Our biggest jumper is pretty easy to pick up from casual observations on gate posts, so that's probably why it's my most recorded jumper (despite being scarce it's common in the south east). It's also easy to find when looking for deadwood beetles.

2) Neon reticulatus - 43 records

I don't have a photo of this diminutive species but it seems to be ubiquitous in moss and is really easy to find with the suction sampler.

3) Salticus scenicus - also 43 records

The familiar synathropic species doesn't turn up that much on surveys on nature reserves but does well for casual recording around towns and semi-urban sites.

4) Euophrys frontalis - 41 records

This little jumper is actually a member of the magic circle, having two magic wands grafted on to where it's front legs should be. Looking at its eyes it also has severe hay fever. Very common, especially in litter piles etc.

5) Evarcha arcuata (nationally scarce) - 37 records

This mainly heathland specialist is clearly well represented in my records for all the surveys I have done on heathlands. This is a stonking jumper, the adult males look like miniature Gorillas with added war paint. And legs. Female above, male below.

6)  Heliophanus flavipes - 36 records

OK, I know this will make me unpopular but if we have our favourites, we should also have our least favourites. I don't really like Heliophanus. We have two mega common species that are not always easy to do in the field. Neither is scarce and neither really tells me anything about the habitat. And I have no photos of either. The fluorescent yellow palps in the female are purchased from Cyberdog. There are two other rare and restricted species I am yet to see.

7) Evarcha falcata - 29 records

Phwoar!!! This on the other hand, is a smart spider. I am a sucker for a contrastingly tri-coloured invertebrate. The proportions are so pleasing too. Imagine having one of these the size of a Staffordshire Bull Terrier. You'd get some looks going to the shops! I don't see this as much as arcuata despite that having cons status and this not.

8) Ballus chalybeius (nationally scarce) - 28 records

This species is pretty easy to find by beating foliage of trees and bushes in the summer. I tend to record the female more than the male. Here is the only shot I could find of an adult male. It looks like Sibianor aurocinctus but I have only ever found that in grassland. That one is coming. I love this guy's front legs and 'upholstered' abdomen.

9) Heliophanus cupreus - 24 records.

Meh. The other species in the genus.

10) Sibianor aurocinctus - (nationally scarce) - 22 records 

I can't believe that this has made it into the top ten. I only recorded my first one in May 2016 at Levin Down. I could blame this on the purchase of my suction sampler but I think it's going through a genuine increase as most of my records are from the sweep net. Although most have been on chalk, I have picked them up on neutral and slightly acid grassland and sometimes not even particularity good grassland. If you think Ballus's legs are cool, you ain't seen nothing yet. Get a load of this.

Last year you may remember that we pan-listed all the Sussex Wildlife Trust reserves. You can read about this in more detail here. With the first draft we were tantalisingly close to reaching 10,000 species. More recently though I have been quiet about it, that's because I wanted to wait until Adastra (the Sussex Biological Recorders' Seminar) to reveal who the finder of that 10,000th species.

But firstly, Adastra! Wow, how lucky are we in Sussex to have this? Well, actually it's not luck; you make your own luck. It's the coming together of a huge collective passion and hard graft coupled with some of the most biodiverse counties in the UK. There were some fantastic talks on Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers, Knepp, flies and much much more. It was also the launch of this fantastic publication. So much awesomeness in one day was difficult to take in!

I gave a talk on the species list on the reserves and announced the finder of the 10,000th species BAFTA style. The winner was James McCulloch and the species was the leaf-mining fly Phytomyza ranunculivora recorded at Graffham Common last year. This species is identifiable from its mines and can be seen above in James' photo of a buttercup leaf. The distribution of the larva's droppings in the mine are enough to clinch the ID. A huge well done to James for finding the 10,000th species. Here he is receiving the prize.

James is also a pan-species lister and I had a look at his profile to write this blog. James is currently ranked as 51st place and has seen 2787 species. What's remarkable about this is he is 14! I put my total together before pan-species listing had a name at age 32 back in 2010. My list then was 2748! So James has beat my by 18 years. This is an incredible achievement. The prize was some NHBS book tokens and I am informed James will be acquiring some books on rove beetles. Well done James!

The species list on the reserves has already shot well beyond 10,000 after the review. In fact we are on 10,094 with the addition of the spider Steatoda grossa that Chris recorded at Rye Harbour in the last few days (thanks for the photo Chris). So what's next? Well, we'll keep adding to the list. I'm about to review all the species recorded at Seaford Head that have conservation status for the management plan. I'd love it if someone who was in a position to, were to approach me to help pan-list another wildlife trust out there, if we could do them all it would be a hugely powerful tool.

I have just finished all the identifications from the invertebrate survey I carried out at Graffham Common this year (a total of 412 species recorded) and thought I would do a little review of the spiders. It came as quite a surprise to me that 16 of the 80 species of spider recorded during the six visits last year have conservation status! That's a remarkable 20%! I have never recording anything like this, especially as I always thought the conservation statuses for spiders were more stringent than for other taxa. Of these 16, 13 are considered nationally scarce while the remaining three are nationally rare! And when you think it was mostly conifer plantation five years ago with some tiny patches of heath you really start to see how special the site is.

Overall we have now recorded 141 spiders at Graffham. I carried out some pitfalls back in 2009 and in 2014 and we added some interesting species back then. Including Xysticus luctuosus (we had quite a few in 2009 but none in 2014). Interestingly it took me until 2017 to find a living one and only then was it one individual (the female above recorded on Fir Toat)! Back in 2009 and even earlier last year this spider wasn't classified as having any conservation status at all but now I'm please to see it's classified as nationally rare and IUCN Endangered! This spider is currently not known from anywhere else in Sussex!

But the biggest surprise for me was the gorgeous IUCN Vulnerable Uloborus walckenaerius. It's an odd looking beast and is also rare. In Sussex known from neighbouring Ambersham Common. It was well established  on Graffham West and on the last visit we even picked one up from Gallows Pond.

And also the BAP IUCN Near Threatened Lichen Running-spider Philodromus margaritatus. In Sussex known only from here and the adjacent Lavington Common. During this survey the spider was recorded on all three blocks.

We recorded for an hour on each of three blocks: Graffham West, Gallows Pond and Fir Toat. A site list was made for each of the sub-sites over the six visits. The full species list is shown below.

Iping & Stedham are on 204 species of spider and a whopping 25.0% of these having conservation status, Rye Harbour is very close to this with 201 species at 19.9% conservation status. Then we have Graffham Common with a grand total of 141 species (the 80 mentioned above was from the six visit standardised survey in 2017 alone) and a total of 17.0% of these have cons status. Old Lodge is next with 139 species with 11.3% conservation status. All these sites, except Graffham Common, are SSSIs (or with higher designations) with years of recording behind them.

And that's just the spiders. Other taxa are showing some similar exciting changes but that will have to wait for another day.