Spinning spider

Eigg is one of the few locations in Scotland where the Daddy-Longlegs Spider, Pholcus phalanginoides, has been found.

In Britain this spider is quite common in the south, but is only found indoors, though it may be found in caves on the continent. It has an unusual defence mechanism; if disturbed, it rotates its body at great speed so that it becomes blurred.

We found these spiders in the house on Eigg where we were staying last year, and again this year. This year I managed to make a couple of videos of them using this defence behaviour in response to my hitting the wall close to their webs:

By slowing down the videos, I was able to discover that the spider in the first video rotated about 8 times per second and the second at about 5 times a second.

It is sometimes stated that these spiders are one of the most poisonous spiders in the world, but their fangs are too short to penetrate human skin. Fortunately this is a myth. For more information see
http://spiders.ucr.edu/daddylonglegs.html

Life after the freeze

After recording a temperature of -15°C at 7am the day before yesterday, the big thaw has now begun. I'll post some pictures of the snow later, but this morning I went out on my cross-country skis to the park by our house and was amazed at the number of small creatures walking around on the snow. These included spiders, flies, springtails and a froghopper. I imagine that the sudden rise in temperature must have caused the eggs to hatch. Below are a selection.

Crab spider

Last week I visited the south-east of England and came across an unusual white spider. I think it is a female Misumena vatia.

This spider does not make a web. It sits among flowers, waiting for passing insects which it catches with its two pairs of long front legs. Each time we approached, it stretched out these front legs, but it was hard to know if it regarded us as a threat or as potential prey.

It was sitting in one of these Hydrangea bushes.

Garden spider

Today Fred found this spider crawling on some rushes by a pond we were visiting.

It is the Garden Spider (Araneus diadematus) which is very common in Britain.

Damselflies

On 2nd August, while visiting a local country park, I spotted this pair of mating damselflies.

It reminded me that, on a visit in May, I had seen a less fortunate damselfly which had been caught by a spider.