Wildlife October 2009

[Lesley Cox]

Excellent picture Paul. Perhaps he's been playing in the gooseberry bushes.

[Paul T]

Lesley,

It does look a bit like that.  He was a canny little blighter, always zipping around to the other side of the branch when I got the camera in to photograph him.  I thought I wasn't going to get any picture that was worthwhile.  The whole spider was maybe 1cm long.

Anthony,

Now, do I ask how you know that, or just ask for the punchline?

 

[mark smyth]

Male spiders wear boxing gloves

[Anthony Darby]

Quite correct Mark. They spin a 'hammock' and rub themselves off on the underside, then sook up the deposited semen turkey baster style. They then mate at arms length using said boxing gloves (pedipalps). Each spider species has a unique design of pedipalp (and equivalent epigynum in the female) and is used to identify, especially money spiders. I had to identify 6000 for my honours project! Last year I was at a talk on Falkland Island spiders. The speaker touched briefly on Scottish spiders, saying he'd caught the third specimen on Walckenaeria incisor in Scotland and that the person who'd caught the second was in the audience. The books I was using (British Spiders Vols I & II by Locket and Millidge) actually had the male and female of this species in different genera! Fortunately vol. III (by Locket, Millidge and Merrett) had corrected this!

[Paul T]

So the dark "paddles" on the arms near the mouth of my spider are in fact these palps which we're dicussing?  The female I assume would have much smaller paddles, or none at all?

It's fascinating some of things we can learn on here.   Good stuff. 

[Anthony Darby]

Her's just look like a smaller pair of legs.

Here's a pic of one of the few insect we saw in Ca'n Picafort, Mallorca. An Egyptian grasshopper (Anacridium aegyptium). The second pic shows why!

[Anthony Darby]

Perhaps this will replace the wildlife?

[mark smyth]

spraying all insects Anthony?

[Anthony Darby]

spraying all insects Anthony?

Spraying everything, including people! I think it was to keep the mossies down, but I suspect that they would be the only ones that would flourish with all their predators annihilated and their powers to develop resistant strains quickly!? Certainly, the trees that were being sprayed were not a crop on any sort, and were on 'waste' ground. I didn't stick around to see which way the machine went, but compared with 19 years ago, Ca'n Picafort was a wildlife desert.

[Gerry]

What an exciting life you're leading Rodger.

Is that a note of sarcasm hovering in the air, perchance?

Sometimes my life reminds me of the canonical description of life in a Victorian country rectory: real excitement was discovering that another strawberry had ripened during the night.

Sounds like everyday life in Durham mate - I'm extending my shed at the weekend.

Gerry

[Olga Bondareva]

It's late to spray insecticides here. Mornings are frosty.

[annew]

Cripes, Gerry. You won the lottery or something? 

[Hans A.]

Olga superb pictures!

Spraying everything, including people! I think it was to keep the mossies down, but I suspect that they would be the only ones that would flourish with all their predators annihilated and their powers to develop resistant strains quickly!? Certainly, the trees that were being sprayed were not a crop on any sort, and were on 'waste' ground. I didn't stick around to see which way the machine went, but compared with 19 years ago, Ca'n Picafort was a wildlife desert.

mossie [Passer melanurus]?
Can Picafort is one of the popular tourist destinations of Mallorca (only a few decades old) where i would not expect to much wildlife.The surroundings are very rich and some important areas like S´Albufera ( an actual birdlist http://www.mallorcaweb.net/salbufera/llistes/aus1_15oct09.pdf) and the protected coastal areas ( direction Puerto de Alcudia and Son Serra) there exist a very interesting flora and fauna - I suppose you have visited these areas.
I think the spraying has been done in the area of Can Picafort to "protect" the tourists because of the masses of mosquitoes/midges which appeared because of the hot weather after a week of rainfall . Here nobody sprayed, the midges were really bloodthirstily (and let me remeber in the camping site in Glenbrittle/Skye in summer )

[Anthony Darby]

I think if anyone tried to mass spray insecticide in Scotland they would suffer the fate of one William Wallace - hung, drawn and quartered! We have what is called mosquito/midgie repellent (if you remember to put it in your haversack!) to prevent bites. There is even an Avon anti-mosquito factor 15 sunscreen, not to mention the famous 'skin-so-soft'. A friend of mine has a midge killing thing that collects them by the kg. It makes barbecues in his garden bearable! We have mossies here, even in the house, but they meet a sticky end if the spiders don't get them. The unfortunate thing is spraying insecticide is counter productive, as the one species that is best able to selectively breed resistant strains is the mosquito, and with all its predators gone the situation becomes ten times worse!

[Hans A.]

I do not think spraying is a common practice (apart of this one picture never seen this before here ) - normally the populations of Gambusia affinis keep the Moskitoenumber in a good tolerable dimension.