A couple of early year sessions at Cullaloe spent mostly tussocking and sieving leaf litter was bound to throw up a good variety of invertebrate specimens, but grabbing the limelight quickly have been the arachnids. Numerically it was always going to be the beetles, both in number and variety, and that's held true. However spiders, harvestmen and pseudoscorpions were quick in on the act (and mites, to be fair, but I can't do nowt with 'em). This shelf has been getting a bit of action (might resemble a different view of another blog not so far away).
A special find today was this female Drassodes cuprea, not new to reserve but new to me, which has a bonus guest. With a bit of luck, the guest may also be identified. Well, maybe a lot of luck, though I have a nice paper on wasps and their spider hosts that might help.
This is what "leisure time" means for me in January!
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| dry-ish leaf pile in the corner of the hide |
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| Deschampsia tussock in the woods - one of 1000s |
I had originally hoped I would have ten spider species by end of January, but it's probably reasonable to expect over 20. I haven't even rooted around for a grass pile yet or dropped a single pitfall trap.
2021 arachnid list at 3/1
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