This is the only family of mygalomorph spiders in Northern Europe, relatives of the tropical American tarantulas. Although the Western Mediterranean region holds over 40 species of Mygalomorphs, including trap door spiders and funnel-web weavers, there is a single species in the UK, Atypus affinis, the purse-web spider. These spiders have massive forward facing chelicers which open and move vertically and are furnished with saw-like teeth underneath. They are multipurpose tools, and are used for digging, moving soil about, cutting its silky tube and crushing prey.

Silken socks
Purse-web spiders spend most of their lives underground, at the end of a sock-like silk tube sealed at both ends. A part of the tube is underground (up to 50 cm deep), and the rest, likened to the finger of a glove, runs across the surface, partly camouflaged with debris and soil. When the spider feels the vibrations of an insect walking on the exposed tube, she darts up, punctures the tube with its opened fangs, stabbing the insect and dragging it into the tube through a slit cut with her fangs. She will then repair the tube and may eventually throw the remains of the prey out.

Wandering males
When males mature in September-October, they leave their purse-web and wander in search of mature females. This is the only stage of their lives, apart from the initial dispersal of spiderlings from their mother's burrow, that they leave the comfort of the underground. If a male finds a female's tube he freezes and taps it a few times with his palps, pauses and taps again. If the female does not respond with aggressive tugging, the male makes a slit in the tube and enters. After mating the male lives with the female for the winter. He might die and be eaten by the female or it might escape in the spring, when males may again be seen wandering in the open.

Slow development
The female makes her egg sac at the bottom of the tube in the summer and the spiderlings hatch in the following spring, some eighteen months after she mated. The young (about 100 per brood) remain with their mother until they are almost one year old, and then, a sunny day of spring, they will emerge from their natal tube, climb onto the surrounding vegetation, and then disperse by a form of ballooning. They will make their first tube before night falls. They won't reach maturity until they are 3-4 years old. The female may rear another brood in her life, which could reach 7-8 years or longer.

Habitat specialists
Individual longevity and slow development means this species is sensitive to habitat changes, as adult individuals don't move from their tube once settled. They live in undisturbed open habitats, on south-facing slopes of sand or friable soils with sparse vegetation of trees and or heather, either inland or coastal, often under the protection of rocky outcrops, anthills or bushes. Although the purse-web spider can be found at high densities, it is a scarce, very local species. Given that a population has recently been discovered at a Yorkshire site (the first record for Yorkshire), it is possible that, due to their secretive habits, some populations of this species still remain to be discovered.

More information
Enock, F. 1885. IX. The life-history of Atypus piceus, Sulz. Transactions of The Royal Entomological Society of London, 33, 389-420. Available from the Biodiversity Heritage Library here. This, according to Bristowe, is the only account of a spider natural history from the 19th century, it is a pleasure to read.

If you have Hedge Woundwort in your garden, Stachys sylvatic you are bound to also have the small and shiny Woundwort Shieldbug, Eysarcoris venustissimus. The whole life cycle of this shieldbug takes place in the plant, they feed, mate, lay their eggs and their larvae feed on it too. They are capable flyers though, so they can easily disperse into new patches. I found this mating pair in the wildlife garden, and when I looked at the photo I noticed a nymph hidden in the seed head to the left of the individual at the bottom, and also a clutch of pale eggs under the seedhead over the individual on the top. The small nymphs look remarkably like the plant seeds green and black. In warm mornings the shieldbugs come to bask on the leaves of the plant, sometimes in large numbers. They are quite gregarious and nymphs and adults are often found side to side.

I found quite a number of spiders today in a trip to my local wildlife garden. It was mild and sunny. Some spiders basked on the wall, like a couple of young Nursery Web spiders, Pisaura mirabilis, and a wolf spider (Pardosa sp.). Nearby, a pair of Linyphia triangularis. As I went for a walk today, I was surprised by a mature Araneus diadematus female hanging from a tree (above). She might have been disturbed in her web possibly by a bird and dropped to safety on her line of silk. When it is foggy, I have seen these spiders webs quite high up in trees.

From mid August to mid September is prime time for squished Lime Hawkmoth caterpillars. Being ready to pupate, they leave the lime trees where they have fed all their lives in search of a suitable pupation site on the ground. As lime trees like streets and parks, I always find them crossing the paths, and most often than not, already squished by passers by. Keep an eye on them, they are as large as a pinky finger when fully grown, greenish to pinkish colour, and with a blue 'horn' at the rear end. We collected this one, which we found on the school grounds this afternoon, to watch the rest of its life cycle at home.

In the last three weeks, I have been coming across Lesser Stag Beetles (Dorcus parallelipipedus) dead on the pavements in my street. June and July are peak emergence time for these dark, flattened beetles. Today we found 10 squished ones and a live one next to a chestnut tree stump, is this were they were coming from? I got the impression that the beetles might have been seeking shelter under the wheels of a car parked next to the stump, and they were inadvertently squashed every time the car moved. This tree stump used to be a tree sculpture (here for a photo, yes, the car behind is the beetle squasher!). Old trees that have got too big are partially felled in our neighborhood to avoid subsidence and then carved into statues. The dry dead wood soon becomes peppered with many tiny beetle holes, which are taken over by little wasps to nest, accompanied by their suit of parasitoids. The sculpture was taken down last year as it had started to rot and become unstable. The remaining stump was as soft as crumble. When I looked into it today, many large exit holes were visible on the surface. I dug a bit into the rotting wood with a stick and it didn't take long to find a Lesser Stag Beetle larvae. They have a large head, strong dark mandibles to chew the rotting wood and a c-shaped body curled underneath. The larva was very active, it turned round and quickly moved away hiding into the wood. Millipedes, woodlice and earthworms shared the dead wood with the beetle larva.
Lesser Stag Beetle larvae take over two years to develop, and several stages may coexist in the same stump. Adults also may live several years, so it is a shame so many are dead, but this stump probably holds many tens of larvae and many adults have probably already dispersed successfully after emergence. 

Given that the weather is so damp and cold I am seeing very few insects these days other than bumblebees. At least I have plenty of time to tidy up my ever growing photo library! While going through my ground beetle photos, I thought I would share this shot of  Harpalus rufipes, a common species that I have even found inside the house. The species is quite distinctive with its orange legs and its wings covered on very fine hairs - giving the elythra a matt feel when compared with head and front of the thorax. This is an omnivorous beetle: it will predate small invertebrates but also feeds on seeds, and gets its English name from the damage it inflicts on strawberries. The species is biennial. It breeds in August and the adults overwinter and overlap with the larvae. The larvae dig deep vertical where they cache seeds, which I thought it is pretty cool behaviour for a beetle. As other common European invertebrates, it was introduced in North America before 1937.

More information

Loughridge, A., & Luff, M. (1983). Aphid Predation by Harpalus rufipes (Degeer) (Coleoptera: Carabidae) in the Laboratory and Field. The Journal of Applied Ecology, 20 (2) DOI: 10.2307/2403519


Hartke, A., Drummond, F., & Liebman, M. (1998). Seed Feeding, Seed Caching, and Burrowing Behaviors of Harpalus rufipes De Geer Larvae (Coleoptera: Carabidae) in the Maine Potato Agroecosystem. Biological Control, 13 (2), 91-100 DOI: 10.1006/bcon.1998.0645

The new shoots of my cherry tree are covered on Black Cherry Aphids, Myzus cerasi. The new leaves are stunted and folded, sheltering the aphid colonies which produce abundant honeydew - loved by bees and bumblebees. Ladybirds have also arrived at the tree in search of the aphids. There are many Harlequin ladybirds, mating, feeding and laying eggs (above).

As the solitary bee herald of spring, Anthophora plumipes, is my favourite bee. It is with some sadness I found this dead male on the path today. The rain might have contributed to its demise, but it might also have reached the end of its natural life. In my patch, the first males appear at the beginning of March, and the last males, usually worn individuals, fly until the middle of May, barely two months of male activity, but the lives of individual males are bound to be even shorter, something I was referring to in my last post. On the bright side, the females will be still busy nesting for another month

 Pholcus is even able to capture and feed on woodlice, which often walk up the walls in my conservatory.
 The spiderlings stay close to their mother for some days after hatching. She hasn't fed since she laid the eggs and she will have to wait until the spiderlings disperse.
 Pholcus go through five moults before maturity. The one below is molting.
Apparently, the most effective enemy of these spiders is that noisy generalist predator, the vacuum cleaner.

More information
Check this website for detailed information on Pholcidae.

Maciej Bartos (1998) Quantitative analyses of male courtship behaviour in Pholcus phalangioides
(Fuesslin, 1775) (Araneae, Pholcidae). In: P. A. Selden (ed.). Proceedings of the 17th European Colloquium of Arachnology, Edinburgh 1997. 171-176. here.

Kazuyoshi Miyashita (1988a) Development of Pholcus Phalangioides (Fuesslin) (Araneae, Pholcidae) under Long and Short Photoperiods. Journal of Arachnology, 16 (1), pp. 126-129.

There are still fresh garden spider webs around if you look, with large Araneus diadematus females making the best of the mild weather. Many, though, have now died, exhausted and shriveled up, after laying eggs. This genetic legacy to next year generation is now inside wrapped up in a yellow silken cocoon attached a corner sheltered from the rain. After finishing their cocoon, they sit on it until they died, not bothering to make a web any more. The eggs will overwinter inside the sac and the spiderlings will emerge the next spring.

Every day I check the Lambs ears for the Woundwort (or Bronze) shieldbugs, Eysarcoris venustissimus. They are usually immobile and once you've found them once, they are easy to find, although they will hide under the leaves if they feel threatened. They form clusters on the tips of leaves, not only of the Lambs ears, but also on the Enchanter's nightshade, which covers the ground on this side of the garden. Today I spotted the first adults of the year, four of them, one on a cluster of final instar nymphs; another, still white (above), looked like it had just moulted into adulthood.

All of a sudden, Buddleia blooms across the city today were decorated with fresh-looking bright coloured Painted Ladies (Vanessa cardui). The contrast with the faded, worn first individual I photographed this year (see this previous post and also an extreme example here) was stark. Most of today's butterflies were likely to have been born in the U.K., the offspring of the migrating individuals. It is unclear how many generations of Painted Lady happen every year, as there is a lot of overlapping. According research carried out by the Spanish researcher Constanti Stefanescu, the whole cycle outdoors takes 6 to 8 weeks depending of the temperature, and he estimated 3 to 4 generations for NW Spain. The number of generations must be more limited here, with the cooler climate, and is likely that these fresh-looking butterflies will become the returning generation and they are not interested in breeding anymore, but in fattening up for their lengthly return to North Africa
More information
Stefanescu, C. (1997) Migration patterns and feeding resources of the Painted Lady butterfly, Cynthia cardui (L.) (Lepidoptera, Nymphalidae) in the northeast of the Iberian peninsula. Miscel.lania Zoologica, 20: 31-48.