The spiders keep on coming...

A Sunday morning walk round Wimpole Hall grounds was a pleasant way to tire out the kids.

Poking about in cow poo to find beetles was initially fun until one of them picked up a stick by the wrong end and wiped resulting poo all over his top...

A few bits and pieces were seen but once again it was a spider that caught my attention.

On a wooden bridge over the ornamental lake there were quite a few of these large jumping spiders trying to catch newly emerged caddisflies.

Not a great shot but identifiable as Marpissa muscosa. 

Now that's a good looking spider..

After saying that I wasn't looking at spiders, new and seemingly easy to identify ones seem to be throwing themselves at me.

Have just spent a rather lovely three days in coastal Suffolk, staying in Aldeburgh and visiting Dunwich cliffs, Rendlesham forest and Walberswick.

Primarily a family break, but did manage a few beetles and other bits and pieces. 

The heaths had Dartford Warblers and Green Tiger Beetles but the forest didn't have too much partly due to the weather, but I did stumble across this fabulous looking creature, Diaea dorsata

I'm not aware I've ever seen one of these before, so glad I stopped when I did and noticed it scuttling around a sign post. Another spider on the list! Might even hit double figures soon

There's a spider down...

I've decided not to bother with spiders at the moment as I have enough to get my teeth into with beetles and some other taxa. Plus they seem bloody tricky and to be frank, while I have no problem looking at and picking up spiders, there is something otherworldly and slightly disconcerting about them when viewed down a microscope.

They're currently filed under 'things to do in retirement'!

That being said, during breakfast the other morning, my youngest son (and the one showing the most interest in natural history) suddenly spouted "Dad, massive spider...."

I followed his gaze to see a fairly innocuous arachnid sitting quietly on the ceiling. I had a quick look and to my amazement I recognised it, having seen it feature on other people's blogs, Scytodes thoracica, the spitting spider. Rather beautifully marked and surprisingly leisurely in the movement department!

I duly potted it and safely put it outside in the garden, only later reading that they are pretty much restricted to heated housing and take 3 years to mature. Apologies to the spider involved

When is a daddy longlegs a daddy longlegs?

When I was a kid, a daddy longlegs was a daddy longlegs, was a daddy longlegs. AKA a cranefly to those of us that cared.

This knowledge served me well until my mid-twenties, when I moved to Australia for work. While living there I don't think I ever knowingly saw a cranefly but people did talk about daddy longlegs in the house. Confusion abounded on my part until a kindly housemate pointed out the rather spindly arachnids making their home in various ceiling corners around the house. These were daddy longlegs.

I returned to the UK, eventually settling in Cambridge to find that these skeletal spiders were a frequent occupant of the houses I rented. I was needless to say a little confused.

Anyway, it turns out they are Pholcus phalangioides are introduced to both the UK and Australia having been originally found in south-west Europe.  They have gradually been spreading north here over the last few decades.

They also go by the names Cellar Spider and the rather cool, Architrave Spider, and are spider predators.

There is also an urban arachnid legend that they are the most poisonous spider on the planet but their fangs are too small to pierce skin. This however is b***ocks! I do get them in the house and I think they are my 5th species of spider, so there we go.

Glad I cleared that up.