Dysdera crocata; Koch, 1838

This is probably a record - photograph and upload on the same day.

Today, at work, I was pleasantly surprised by an unexpected guest.

Several of my co-workers were not-so-pleasantly surprised, and wanted to squish the guest. I not-so-delicately reminded them that arachnophobia is in no way the fault - or the problem - of the spider, and took her outside, where she rewarded me with this:

Female. Photographed in Bosham, West Sussex, UK, in April 2014 (today) using Olympus E-420 DSLR, Zuiko 40-150mm lens and 3 KOOD magnifiers.

That isn't an aggressive pose, by the way, but a defensive pose adopted when I loomed in closer than she liked with the camera. And while it's perhaps not the best way to endear her to an audience which is on the fence, those rather extraordinary chelicerae are relevant, because this is the (recently cosmopolitan) European Woodlouse Spider,

Dysdera crocata

Koch, 1838

  
As you might have guessed, she feeds upon woodlice and other comparably crusty creatures. Those formidable fangs are what allow her to bite through the calcium carbonate coating of the average woodlouse, or the chitin of a millipede or even - if you were so incautious as to poke her in the face - the somewhat softer keratin of human skin.

If you do - as quite a few people have - find yourself inciting a woodlouse spider to bite, don't panic  - the recorded effects on humans are in the region of nettle and honeybee stings (see the Natural History Museum's bite records here). 

With that, then, let's explore her taxonomy: 

- Dysderinae         

-  Dysderidae          

- Dysderoidea           

- Haplogynae             

- Araneoclada             

See also Phrynarachne rugosa, Hyllus argyrotoxus, Enoplognatha ovata, Argiope bruennichi, Pardosa amentata  and Alopecosa barbipes. 

- Neocribellatae           

- Araneomorphae           

- Opisthothelae                

- Araneae                         

- Megoperculata                  

- Micrura                              

- Arachnida                             

See also Dicranopalpus ramosus.

- Chelicerata                            

- Arthropoda                            

See also Ligia oceanica, Eremoides bicristatus, Hagenomyia tristis, Dichtha inflata, Oedemera nobilis, Otiorhynchus atroapterus,Malachius bipustulatus , Phyllobius pomaceus, Cheilomenes lunata, Melolontha melolontha, Neojulodis vittipennis, Demetrias atricapillus, Anthia fornasinii, Lophyra cf. differens, Synagris proserpina, Vespula germanica, Astata tropicalis, Anthophora furcata, Andrena nigroaenea, Zebronia phenice, Crambus pascuella, Nemophora degeerella, Sphinx ligustri, Laelia robusta, Acada biseriata, Metisella willemi, Anthocharis cardamines, Papilio demodocus, Panorpa germanica, Chloromyia formosa, Senaspis haemorrhoa, Helophilus pendulus, Episyrphus balteatus, Metadon inermis, Diasemopsis meigenii, Dolichotachina caudata, Megistocera filipes, Pephricus, Grypocoris stysi, Ranatra, Anoplocnemis curvipes, Idolomantis dentifrons, Sibylla pretiosa, Tettigonia viridissima, Stictogryllacris punctata, Enyaliopsis, Humbe tenuicornis, Lobosceliana loboscelis, Cyathosternum prehensile, Heteropternis thoracica, Pseudothericles jallae, Enallagma cyathigerum, Pseudagrion hageni, Lestinogomphus angustus and Rhyothemis semihyalina. 

- Ecdysozoa                               

- Protostomia                              

See also Burtoa nilotica.

- Nephrozoa                                  

See also Caprimulgus pectoralis, Tockus alboterminatus, Larus argentatus, Sterna hirundo, Burhinus vermiculatus, Troglodytes troglodytes, Megaceryle maxima, Ardea goliath, Chalcophaps indica, Stigmatopelia senegalensis, Lygodactylus capensis, Thelotornis capensis, Zootoca vivipara, Trachylepis varia, Trachylepis striata wahlbergi, Hipposideros vittatus, Syncerus caffer, Rana temporaria, Breviceps poweri, Chiromantis xerampelina and Synchiropus splendidus. 

- Bilateralia                                     

- Eumetazoa                                     

- Animalia                                          

- Eukaryota                                         

There are two species of Dysdera present in the UK, both of which can occasionally be found indoors - much more frequently in the case of today's distinctly synanthropic (does well near humans) guest. They're not too readily distinguished, as colour characters are often unreliable, but the presence of one external character can readily rule out Dysdera erythrina [although its absence cannot, unfortunately for the spiders, rule out D. crocata, and so dissection is sometimes necessary if perfect identification is vital to the survival of the human race]. Behold;

Although not at their most visible in this shot, our lovely lady has a couple (three, actually, on the circled thigh - two is usual) of small, black bristles on the dorsal surface (top side) of her fourth femur (thigh bit). So - despite having colouring suggestive of D. erythrina, and being in a region where both are known, we've got a known specimen.

Which is nice, don't you think?

And with that, that really is all, folks.

An excellent starting point for UK spiders is the Spider (and harvestman) Recording Scheme - link in name. With pictures of probably a majority of species, maps of known records, and absolutely stunning graphs and pie-charts (I love statistics. I didn't always. But now I do. Thank you, Dr. Tom Reader, for showing me the light. If I'd only realised my love before I handed in my dissertation three years ago...). 

Melolontha melolontha (Linnaeus, 1758)

Beetles....

British Beetles...

What to say about British Beetles...

Regular readers (hypothetically speaking), might remember me rambling without direction about the diversity of flies and beetles in this post (About the lovely and bizarre Diasemopsis meigenii). Well, we're going to expand a little bit on that here.

As a resident of the UK, I am both cursed and blessed where entomology is concerned - cursed because three of the biggest reasons to have low diversity of wildlife are: a) being an island; b) being a long way from the tropics and therefore having a history of ice-ages wiping out the local wildlife; and c) being a densely populated and heavily developed part of Europe, where people have been disturbing wildlife as heavily as they can since just before the ice left. Blessed, however, because this limited fauna is one of the best studied on the planet, which makes it much easier to identify most species without breaking the bank.

It is also one of the few places in the world where the known species of fly greatly outnumber the known species of beetle, and this, in concert with its uniquely well-studied fauna, is one point of support for flies being more diverse than beetles.

This brings me - finally - to my point. Flies are - as the name suggests - mostly quite good at flying, if only because their bodies are so light that they need very little energy to stay in the air. This gets them blown across such insignificant bodies of water as the English Channel with a frequency much higher than, say, large beetles.

It does have a handful (some of which, like the greater stag-beetle (Lucanus cervus), are in a fairly alarming decline because of the incompatibility of a large population which burns all available wood in the winter and a beetle that spends several years as a larva inside dead wood and doesn't survive being burnt), and today's subject is probably the most frequently encountered of that handful...

Eukaryota
  Animalia
    Eumetazoa
      Bilateralia
        Nephrozoa
          Protostomia
            Ecdysozoa
              Arthropoda
                Hexapoda
                  Insecta
                    Dicondylia
                      Pterygota
                        Manopterygota
                          Neoptera
                            Eumetabola
                              Endopterygota
                                Coleopterida
                                  Coleoptera
                                    Polyphaga
                                      Scarabaeiformia - Beetles that are like scarab beetles
                                        Scarabaeoidea - Scarabs and friends
                                          Scarabaeidae - Scarab beetles
                                            Melolonthinae - Chafer beetles...
                                              Melolonthini

Melolontha melolontha

 (Linnaeus, 1758)

 Also known as the Common Cockchafer, it had gone through a period of being not-that-common (Europeans have been very fond of pesticides for almost as long as Americans), but is making a sort-of-recovery lately. There is one very similar species in the UK, which is distinguished by having a blunt, rounded tip to its abdomen, rather than the rather pointed one of this species (not visible in either photograph displayed here).

A more informative view of the same (male) is shown below: