1000 Up

I failed to get to 1000 species for Pan-species listing before I went on holiday but I managed to bust through in August and have added some fantastic bits and pieces since then. I currently find myself on 1038 species and here are a few of my favourites.

Megachile centuncularis

Segestria florentina - I managed to find loads of these and their more diminutive brethren S.senoculata in the brickwork around Bridgwater. S.florentina is a large reclusive spider which lives in a tube web and when it is illuminated its fangs glow neon green.

Segestria florentina

I also had a ramble out onto the Quantocks looking for Chalkhill Blues. It was a bit windy but I found a rather ratty male. Better than these though were the Hornet Robberflies. These were predating grasshoppers and Hornets and are the largest species of diptera in the UK.

Hornet Robberfly

Whilst seawatching at Barmston I managed to add a new fish as some of the small cobbles close in were fishing for Mackerel. I may have seen these in the past but hadnt remembered any specific incidences.

There have been three new orthoptera additions since my holiday. Both Short-winged and Long-winged Coneheads were picked up at Hatch Hill in Somerset along with plenty of Lesser Marsh Grasshoppers.

I managed to add two conopid flies, Conops quadrifasciatus and C. ceriaeformis which were awesome looking beasties which I initially mistook to be hoverflies. On the beetle front 11-spot Ladybird came from coastal dunes in Cumbria whilst a Churchyard Beetle was found on a manor house wall along with Amaurobius ferox and a still to be identified centipede with 60 pairs of legs. A third beetle, Anthocomus rufus was on Hogweed at Westhay Moor in Somerset.

Anthocomus rufus

A trio of moths made up the remainder of the Lepidoptera additions with June Highflyer, Latticed Heath and belatedly Chestnut Leaf Miner noted. Spiderwise it was a profitable time as aside from the three species I have already mentioned a couple of Crab Spiders, Misumena vatia and Xysticus cristatus. Finally a massive money spider, Linyphia triangularis was discovered in a limestone quarry in Cumbria. I also finally managed to pin down one of the mining bees to species with Megachile centuncularis.

July Highflyer

The final animalia addition is Compass Jellyfish as I watched a number of jellies being washed up on the spring tides in Cumbria. A single fungi addition will hopefully be joined by many more over the next couple of months. I thought I'd found Amethyst Deceiver but it turns out it was Mycena pura. Purple anyway...

Mycena pura

I know I said this last time but the plants will follow in a later post...