The Lyons Share

October 1996: Partly through frustration at my A-level biology teachers ("that's not a rock-rose Graeme, it's a buttercup" - really? Is this what it's gonna be like if I do biology at university?) and partly for reasons that will forever remain a mystery, even to me, I started a degree and masters in astrophysics at Sussex University.

I have just had one of the most rewarding weekends! Six month's ago Dr Alan Stewart of Sussex University asked me and a number of other specialists to come and help teach students in entomology at the campus as part of a BENHS event. For me, coming back to the university after all these years was very strange. Especially as I often used to look across from the maths and physics blocks up to the biology department thinking, "I really should be over there". I remember seeing the Biology Road sign all those years ago. So to go back and teach entomology, all be it just for a weekend, provided a great deal of catharsis for me. I gave talks on beetles, spiders and biological recording. The weirdest thing here was the lines and lines of calculus on the chalk boards, all very familiar but totally forgotten by me.

Anyway, the real stars of the show were the students. I was amazed at how keen they were, many of them turning up with reference collections and lots of equipment! On the first day we spent our time in the field by a dew pond on the campus (next to where twenty years ago Richard Attenborough gave us an introductory talk and I specifically remember him mentioning how important extra curricular activities are! - this could not be more true in the field of entomology) and the chalk-grassland at Stanmer Park. Alan and I had our petrol and electric suction-samplers respectively and this produced a wealth of material to show students. I was encouraging students to take carabid specimens to key out (the other half of the students split off with Mike Edwards to look at bees and flies).

I even managed ten new beetles with the help of Peter Hodge but it was back in the lab where the real work started walking students through keys for the first time. It was so great to see students get their first correct identification. One student picked up what I thought was a small Harapalus in the field which turned out be a male Ophonus. I helped really only by dissecting the aedeagus but the student managed to card the beetle and mount the aedeagus and we tentatively put the name Ophonus schaubergerianus which might even be new to East Sussex. I'm going to get a second opinion on this one. Sadly I didn't manage to get many photos of specimens or students. I did manage this photo of Chris Bentley and I at the microscopes.

On the second day we opened some moth traps. The highlight was the most well hidden Mullein, perfectly adapted to hiding on pegs.

We did more survey work on the campus and the highlight was finding yet another of the RDB1 Cassida denticollis. This area is clearly a hot-spot for this very rare beetle as we recorded it at Malling Down and Southerham last year. We picked it up (and two much commoner Cassida) in the suction-samplers. What was great was seeing students in the field come back with specimens they had caught such as Green Hairstreak, Rhinoceros Beetle, Andrena fulva, at least eight species of shieldbug and the saproxylic weevil Phloeophagus lignarius. The whole weekend was so exciting and I really felt like I helped make a difference. Well done to all the students and teachers alike, I hope this becomes a regular event!

Four years with my head in the stars seems like just a drop in the ocean now for me as I continue my life long journey down biology road.

I promised to summarise where we are with Pan-species Listing every year on or around the 31st December or 1st January. I've only got round to doing it, three months after I noted down the information on a plane somewhere around Tasmania. Anywhere, First up, here is the top ten as of that date. 

Only six of the nine active listers here have updated this year.  I'm on 6123 now out of interest.

Anyway, I also added the 100th lister to this, who was Rowan Alder on 903. It's now Jerry Lanfear on 961. There are only two people in the top 100 who are under a 1000 species. Our youngest lister is 12 and our oldest 63. I know we have some people older than 63 but that's just the ages people have put on the website. Actually 41 of the 162 people on the rankings have put their age down (42 if you count the 0 year old but I reckon that's a typo!) The average age therefore of the PSLer who is prepared to admit their age is 38!

So there were 154 on rankings in the new year and 300 people signed up to the website. I didn't check the Facebook group but there are 261 as of right now. Not bad going at all considering we had to start from scratch with the Facebook group this time last year.

Here are the top ten sites as of the new year

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No changes have occurred here in the last three months. I don't think this part of the website works very well without taxa breakdowns on the location rankings. I hope this can be added but it's beyond my abilities and I have asked BRC if we can have this added but I'm still waiting for a reply. I think this could make site managers competitive and would really add to our understanding of sites.

Now for the taxa breakdowns as of the new year.

Algae		Jony Denton	288
Slime Moulds		Malcolm Storey	51
Protists		Jony Denton	24
Lichens		Simon Davey	1195
Fungi		Malcom Storey	1391
Bryophytes		Simon Davey	467
Vascular Plants		John Martin	2205
Sponges		Jonty Denton	8
Comb-jellies		Jeff Blincow, Richard Comont, Jerry Lanfear, James Harding-Morris, Lee Johnson	2
Cnidarians		Richard Comont	37
Molluscs		Jonty Denton	216
Bryozoans		Richard Comont	23
Annelids		Richard Comont	48
Platyhelminth worms		Brian Eversham	17
Sea-spiders		Richard Comont	4
Arachnids		Jonty Denton	492
Myriapods		Keith Lugg	71
Crustaceans		Brian Eversham	98
Springtails		Richard Comont	35
3-tailed Bristletails		Matt Princve, Nicola Bacciu, Jony Denton, Brian Eversham	6
Odonata		Mark Telfer, Dave Gibbs	48
Orthopteroids		Mark Telfer	41
Hemipteroids		Jonty Denton	850
Hymenoptera		Dave Gibbs	792
Coleoptera		Mark Telfer	2562
Diptera		Dave Gibbs	3123
Butterflies		Seth Gibson	62
Moths		Tony Davis	1617
Remaining small insect orders		Jonty Denton	194
Echinoderms		Richard Comont	19
Tunicates		Richard Comont	17
Fish		Richard Comont	95
Reptiles		Dave Gibbs, Seth Gibson, Paul Clack	9
Amphibians		Jonty Denton	13
Birds		Dave Gibbs	519
Mammals		Mark Telfer	64
Other animals		Jonty Denton	36

 A total of 16739 species! Every time this is updated, a new record has been broken. I was pleased to see that new records now stand for comb-jellies, cnidarians, myriapods, springtails, beetles and birds since I captured this info. The beetle record is already 70 species higher than this since Mark updated. I'd love it if that whenever anyone updates this list and makes a new record, that it shows on the front page of the website as these are significant events and will only reduce in frequency as times goes on and the records get harder and harder to beat. I've still not managed to get on this list again after briefly being joint top fish lister. I'm not even second now. I did have all sorts of plans about going out on fishing boats but I'm always too busy these days. My tactic is to outlive everyone else through extreme exercise and healthy eating. Marginal gains.

With people finding species new to Britain, new to science and a new generation of youngsters getting on board, PSL is really finding its feet. I have already started getting going with my first survey last week where I had a number of new beetles and spiders at Ebernoe Common. I have lots and lots of surveys planned for 2016 and my new battery powered suction sampler just turned up too, meaning I'll always have one in the car ALL THE TIME. Here is to a great 2016, happy listing!

Last Sunday we went to South Wales to see some slugs. Seriously. This part of the world, thanks to Christian 'Sparrow' Owen, has become a bit of PSLers pilgrimage of late, with some people going back three times to get their fix! I actually don't know how many new species I saw on Sunday, I lost count. I do know that I quadrupled my slug list. 

Until last Sunday, I hated slugs. Both physically and taxonomically but thanks to Christian, I am now rather fond of them. I can't state enough how impressive a naturalist Christian is, I don't think he has left a stone unturned in South Wales. He's found two species new to the UK (including the cracking Alsatian Semi-slug Daudebardia rufa above, who wears his shell like a flat cap and is the size of an Alsatian) within a few miles of his house by adopting this approach and his knowledge of myriapods and molluscs is impressive. He was the real star of the day and I am very grateful for the time he gave us, great company and a cracking teacher. Here he is on the left, King of the Edgelands. There I am on the right experiencing my nth new mollusc; bewildered, soaked and slug-blind but loving every minute! (thanks for the photo Tony).

Would you believe it, the photo above is of Ghost Slug habitat. And here is one in all its glory. Impressive hey?! These are actually the spirits of other species of dead slug that have unfinished business in this world. This particular individual was murdered by his best friend and has come back to seek revenge. Heartbreaking and haunting in equal measure, I'm sure you'll agree. The sense of loss is profound.

And this one that Christian found new to the UK a while ago that doesn't even have a name yet! I reckon Gavin. Or maybe Stacey. Anyways, it was an amazing day and I'm so glad that I finally have a foot in the door with slugs. Happy days!

If you don't like stuff dripping and covered in slime, I direct you at this point to the Ryvita website. If you do, read on. I've been on a jaunt around Ebernoe today with Martin Allison (county fungi recorder) and some of my colleagues. Part recording session, part training session and part management advice trip, today proved a valuable day in the field for all. It's vitally important to continually hone and advance your natural history skills working in the field of ecology and conservation and today provided just that. Ebernoe is known for having well over a 1000 species of fungi so where is there better to go looking for them?

Above is the Bay Bolete, a common enough species but I love how the cap glistens with rain water and slime. I took this in the Leconfield area of Ebernoe where we have worked hard recently to manage Holly for other interest features on the site whilst being sympathetic to the bat's requirements. We were pleased to see that fungi in this area were more prolific today than anywhere else on site. There are limited mycorrhizal (the subterranean parts of fungi) assemblages under Holly so a more varied woodland structure is likely to produce more fungi on the woodland floor.

Now I've been saying "I don't do slugs!" for years. I still don't but today I got a little closer. I managed to take a few photos of a slug I saw on a tree that I thought looked a little different. Turns out it's just one of the large Arion species and I'm not going to get it to species from this photo. However, I'm really pleased with this shot and I'm hoping this might finally give me a way in to this disgusting group of animals. It's kinda cute though. Aaaaghhhh, the internal conflict.

We then had time to have a quick look on the cricket pitch where even more waxcaps were found including these Slimy Waxcaps, Spangle Waxcaps and...

...what we think are the VERY slimy Heath Waxcaps. It's so slimy, one can barely maintain a purchase when holding its stype betwixt thumb and forefinger!

And finally the rather odd looking Smoky Spindles. 

So out of nowhere in the last month, I've really rekindled my interest in fungi. As has my friend, TinyBirder, whom I helped photograph Holly Parachute at Ebernoe today. Follow his adventures on Facebook here.

This is Pipe Club, and I've been waiting years to see this again just so I can write a blog with this title. Indulge me.

"The first rule of Pipe Club is: You do not talk about Pipe Club. The second rule of Pipe Club is: You do not talk about Pipe Club. Third rule of Pipe Club: Someone yells stop, goes limp, taps out, the recording session is over. Fourth rule: only two guys to a specimen. Fifth rule: one identification at a time, fellas. Sixth rule: wear shirts, wear shoes. Seventh rule: Photo shoots will go on as long as they have to. And the eighth and final rule: If this is your first day at Pipe Club, you have to find a rare fungus".

(This is either going to make NO sense to you, or if you seen the film/read the book will at best be mildly amusing. Hey, I like my incongruous natural history/popular culture references and it's my blog, OK?).

Anyways, for the first time since last May, I've been out with the WWFRG to Whithurst Park where we mopped up and I added 27 new fungi to my list. I was very pleased to see that my old friend Shaun Pryor has become an active member of the group and we had a good catch up. Shaun has literally just signed up to Pan-species Listing and is attempting something no one else has: he is starting completely from scratch! You can follow Shaun's progress here. Anyway, Whithurst Park. Fungi have some pretty bonkers common names and Pipe Club has always made me chuckle. It's also almost exactly the same colour and texture as Morph...

Perhaps the most ridiculous name of the day was Elastic Saddle, a new one for me and quite an uncommon species. I think it kinda looks like a fortune cookie.

Other new species today included these tiny Twig Parachutes growing on a bramble stem.

And this Peeling Oysterling. 

As per usual though, Magpie Inkcaps stole the show.

A big thank you to all the people at the WWFRG for sharing their incredible wealth of knowledge. Shaun and I then carried on to Ebernoe Cricket Pitch and there were even more waxcaps there this week than last. With a little help, we are fairly sure we saw nine species, including two new ones for me, these huge Splendid Waxcaps.

And the strongly honey-scented Honey Waxcap. It is impossible to take a photo of a fungus at Ebernoe Cricket Pitch without it being photo-bombed by Chamomile leaves!

And a single Orange Grisette was up again too.

This week I finally caught up with one of the rare mammals that is so significant on some of our West Weald woodland sites, the Bechstein's Bat. This rare woodland bat is heavily protected and was captured as part of a survey by fully licensed bat specialists. It's a fairly big bat with large ears, noticeably bigger than Natterer's Bat which we also saw.

But who was Bechstein? A quick Google and I found this page. It seems Johann Matthäus Bechstein was one of the first naturalists concerned with conservation and the bat was named in his honour. It was described by Heinrich Kuhl, who it seems was a younger contemporary of Bechstein's who died at the age of 24 in 1821, only a year before the much older Bechstein passed away. What I find remarkable is that the naturalists at this time (nearly 200 years ago) were able to catch and describe this and other species like it, with very little of the equipment we have today. It must have been such an exciting time with so many species being undescribed then. I guess the only way we'll ever witness a period like that again is if we find another planet with life on and start describing that too...

13/06/2015 UPDATE: So I accidentlay wrote that Bechstein's Bat is my 49th beetle (this is clearly not true as I have seen many more than 49 beetles). This was brought to my attention by Dr Robert Hoare of New Zealand who left me this comment which I just had to include here...

I've recently determined that
the Bechstein's Bat is not a bat...
What observations sway me? Many:
the 'ears' are saucer-like antennae...
that fuzzy 'fur' (I'm sorry sweetie)
is clearly Coleoptera setae
(the kind that keeps a chafer safe
when other chafers start to chafe)...
those wings, apparently of hide?
Elytra (highly modified)!
It has six legs, but due to frost,
two pairs have recently been lost...
and what are these? Surprise, surprise:
they're single-facet compound eyes!
My stark deduction bears repeatal:
the Bechstein's Bat's a bloody beetle!

Peter Marren literally wrote the book on Britain's rare flowers, so it was a great honour to show him three rare plants that he had never seen before, all on Amberley Wildbrooks and all (in hind sight) within a square metre of a single ditch. Peter is on a quest to see all of the native plants in the UK and is only about 50 or 60 species away from achieving this goal. 

Above is Peter with handfuls of the very rare Sharp-leaved Pondweed Potamogeton acutifolius. The first of our three rare plants and the most widespread on site, growing in most ditches which have some open water in them.

The highlight was of course Cut-grass Leersia oryzoides. An assuming grass with a subtle beauty that is widespread around the site and is flowering well, this year. I've never seen it flowering before, my search image is focused on looking for the upper leaf terminating the plant, often pointing straight up like a spear. ALL my photos, yet again, came out badly for this grass which is as hard to photograph as it is to spot. The third and final plant was the hardest to find but the commonest species nationally being Hairlike Pondweed Potamogeton trichoides.

It was great to spend time with such a like minded naturalist, I even managed a tick of my own, a male Crabro cribrarius wasp. I leave you with my photo of Pasque Flower, inspired by the cover of Peter's book, that I took at Therfield Heath many years ago...

This weekend was the third 'official' PSL field meeting, and a great weekend it was. This time Jonathon Newman was the organiser and the site was Woodwalton Fen in Cambridgeshire. I've managed to process ALL of my identifications and get ALL of my records onto Recorder already so I am feeling rather pleased with myself, if a little exhausted.

The weather was pretty poor on the Saturday but we did still manage a couple of stonking beetles. The site manager had told us of the recent discovery of Tansy Beetle Chrysolina graminis (a very scarce priority species). Have a look here for Buglife's write up on the species. At Woodwalton it's not feeding on Tansy, rather on Water Mint.

I saw my second ever Musk Beetle Aromia moschata, which was even more impressive than I remember. The last one I saw flew over our heads in Lakenheath car park back in 2004. This is a huge beetle!

All in all I have added 27 new species including this larvae, which I am pretty sure is the larvae of the scarce sawfly Cimbex connatus, the first thing I found on the day!

I wonder where the next event will be and who will host it? These are great opportunities to meet like-minded naturalists and learn from those around you but attendance was surprisingly low, with only 12 people maximum. I hope next year there will be even more people! A massive thank you to Jonathon for organising the event, having arranged the first one back in 2012, I know that these things take up a lot more of your time than you would think. It was really well organised and I was pleased to relax and not feel like I was at work (even though I relentlessly surveyed all weekend and got a lot of people a lot of new species). That's what this is all about though, helping those further down the rankings, even if it means everyone is closing in on me. All I want from PSL is to be a better naturalist, help make lots of other competent naturalists and have a bloody good laugh along the way! So far so good I say!!!

Day two. A few less people but also one extra in the form of Steve Gale who I finally got to meet. There is a bit of a walk to get to Heyshott and when you are there the terrain is pretty hard going. We had been on site a matter of minutes when we started recording Grizzled and Dingy Skippers, smart green Cryptocephalus aureolus, Bracken Chafers and then Duke of Burgundy! The coolest thing about this particular Duke was that not only was it Mark Skevington's first, it also landed on his net! Then I looked down at my net to see a really cool Cryptocephalus which was a tick for me. Cryptocephalus moraei.

Clive Washington got his suction sampler out and I was amazed at how well it worked in short turf. We saw all sorts but the Devil's-bit Scabious Jewel Beetle Tachys troglodytes was perhaps the coolest. Another tick for me was the nationally scarce crab spider Ozyptila nigrita. There are very few records for this little crab spider in Sussex. I was hoping it was gonna be a county first. Never mind!

Bruce Middleton showed everyone the bryophytes the site is well known for. People were pleased to see Rhodobryum roseum and all sorts of scarce liverworts. Having covered these with Bruce on a previous podcast, I concentrated on the invertebrates. That said, it was cool to see a green Fly Orchid!

On the way back, a cool thing happened. I asked if there was anything that feeds on Wild Garlic. Someone said there was a hoverfly that nectars on the flowers. I swept the flowers, we caught the hoverfly. Everyone in the group saw the fly and here is little garlic breath himself: Portevinia maculata. I am really pleased with how things went. I added 25 species to my list. Hopefully the next meeting will be held in a different county and rockpooling seems like a popular idea!
I have already been back in the field today setting up some invertebrate monitoring at Iping & Stedham, where I added a further three species including the odd little saproxylic deadwood hoverfly Microdon analis, the crab spider Philodromus cespitum and the cool little weevil Cionus tuberculosus (which also landed on my net). I am on 3987. Only 13 to go to the 4000 mark. Shall I attempt to make 4000 something good or just let it happen and leave it to chance? I predict I will be there by the weekend...

We did it! It was relatively easy to organise really but several things fell into place to make for a really great weekend. Firstly, the weather was great. Secondly, attendance was high. We had 18 people in the field on the Friday (16 people from Mark Telfer's list of 35 listers) which I think is pretty good. Much more than this and it would have become difficult to manage. Thanks to Sarah Patton for the photo above. From left to right we have Dave Gibbs, Martin Harvey, Mark Telfer, Simon Davey, Mark Skevington, Penny Green, Clive Washington, Michael Blencowe (yes we recorded it for the podcast too!), Matt Prince, Dave Green, Nicola Bacciu, Jonathan Newman, Me and Malcolm Storey, Many people even had a tick in the car park, the mining bee Andrena scotica and/or this Burrowing Clover.

So why Parham Park? Well I have been once to Parham for the last two years and we always find good things (usually saproxylic beetles) and I wanted to target a difficult group like this, and many people were quite new to deadwood beetles. Probably the first mega that most people saw though were the Field Crickets. A species that I am so used to down here that I forgot to tell people they were on site! Oops. It was great to get Dave Gibbs a tick that he had to abort 20 years ago!

It's going to take me a long time to add up and identify all the specimens but interesting saproxylics that we saw included the larvae of the exceptionally rare Variable Chafer Gnorimus variabilis. A Melandrya caraboides that Michael spotted and I netted in flight. Mark Telfer found a great tick for me, the striking little bright metallic blue hairy clerid Korynetes caeruleus. This species is nationally scarce and new for the site. Dave Gibbs found what is likely to be Procraeus tibialis in the same tree I found one on two years ago. I also found new to the site a single elytron of Colydium elongatum, the second time I have recorded this species in this way.

Dave Gibbs also got me a couple of new flies. Perhaps one of the most striking invertebrates of the day was this Criorhina floccosa, a really wonderful deadwood hoverfly that looks quite like a carder bee. It was a popular fly!

And also this little doli fly, Neurigona quadrifasciata. I now have two dolis on my list.

Simon Davey showed the group some rare lichens but I find them very tricky to take in with a large group like this, I think they really need to be taught in a more formal, course-like setting. Sadly, I didn't feel confident at re-identifying any of the lichens so I added no new lichen species to my list. Whilst looking closely at a lichen tree, Mark Skevington spotted this smart little psychid, Narycia duplicella. I thought this was going to be a tick for me but Seth Gibson showed me this earlier this year at Epsom. A shame that Seth and Sami were not able to make it but they are currently on their honeymoon quest to walk the length of the country. Meanwhile, a Spotted Flycatcher did its best to 'sing' for us.

Hawthorn, although in full flower, was not as productive as we had all hoped but during some routine sweeping I stumbled across some debris in the bottom of my net that had just a little too much symmetry to it. I very nearly discarded it. As I took a closer look, I saw perhaps the strangest and coolest weevil I have ever seen. Covered in pits and warts, this strange beast looked like no other beetle but when Mark Telfer and Dave Gibbs came along and were almost as equally bemused as I was, I knew we had found something a little unusual. This species is likely to be perhaps the only species that was new to everyone. Mark Telfer was able to tentatively identify it in the field as the introduced Fern Weevil Syagrius intrudens (I did indeed sweep it from Bracken, moments later Mark found another three). This was the highlight for me and was a popular beast, being christened Mr Lumpy. By the afternoon, the relentless heat was making people go a little strange. UPDATE: Mark Telfer has since found out this is only the seventh known site for this weevil...in the world! Read all about it here.

Someone also spotted this Dendroxena quadrimaculata. I have only seen this once before at Ebernoe in 2009 so it was nice to see this strange nationally scarce silphid again.
After a pub meal at the Crown Inn down the road at Cootham, we headed back out into the field for some light trapping and torching.

And of course, Mark's secret weapon, the Autokatcher. Mark transformed his car into a beetle catching device and he did pick up a number of tiny specimens this way that are yet to be identified. I wonder if anything good will come out of this method. Amazing!
Moths that came to light were a little thin on the ground but I did actually get one macro moth tick, Rosy Marbled!
Clive found a cracking Carabus arvensis but I didn't get to tick it unfortunately. Helops caeruleus is abundant on big old oaks at Parham at night. As we were searching some really old trunks I found a click beetle that Mark is yet to identify, so I hope that turns out to be something good whilst in the distance, a Nightjar churred away. Mark also spotted an odd looking beetle too high up on an oak to reach and it vanished into a crack in the bark never to be seen again, I am pretty sure now it was Opilo mollis. We finished up at midnight, headed back home to get some sleep ready to start again on day two at Heyshott Down. This is perhaps the biggest post I have ever written so part two will be out tomorrow. At this point, I would add if you think you would enjoy a day like this and be inspired to work on new and difficult groups, then put your list together, sign up to the pan-species rankings and you'll be able to come on the next field meeting which is already in discussion!

I am going to spend the rest of the day identifying specimens and staying out of the sun. It was an exhausting few days but that didn't stop me going to the pub last night and BMF first thing this morning. That said, I am looking forward to an afternoon sat down, looking down a microscope! My list is getting very close to 4000, at the time of writing I'm on 3963 so I might even get there by the end of the weekend. Finally, a big thank you to Parham Park for allowing us to host this event on their site.