Spiders found in garden to ID please

[Andestine]

Lovely to find a spider forum here

I have multiple interests nature-wise, but have a special fondness for some creatures, including spiders. Several are given (knowing) shelter in my home and I love to photograph them in the garden and on walks. For years I’ve been interested in their aesthetic properties. I find them very beautiful, even house spiders, when seen close up. But now I’m just starting to learn how to name them and discover more about their behaviour.

I’ve ordered the Collins book on spiders and hope I’ve made the right choice. I’m currently adding to my collection of rather old natural history books, and I’ve already ordered the insect books the kind folks here recommended, so if anyone knows of any good spider ID or basic behaviour books I’d be very grateful (a link would be fine too).

In the meantime, I’ll confirm my amateur status by asking for an ID on these. As you can see, my photographic status is still amateur too (Fuji Finepix 31d, never taken off automatic). Must learn how to focus on tiny spiders like the first one








Cheers,

Andestine

[No.9 Spider]

Hi Andestine, your first photo is of an immature spider, not much more than a spiderling and so is hard to make a guess on with any certainty. The second one is a Tetragnatha species.
The Michael Roberts book is a good guide to families with good colour plates. The use of a microscope is the only way to identify 100%, the majority of our 650ish species.
One book that is a must and should fit your bill is The World of Spiders by W.S. Bristowe. It is fantastically written by a man who actually observed many of our species and wrote about their behaviour.


No.9 Spider

[Andestine]

Hello No 9 Spider,

Thanks for the help

From the insect folks I'm already starting to understand how complex identification can be. Although I spent three years working in tandem with a fabulous Zeiss microscope, and love microscopy, I'm now finding myself in a quandry as I can't bear to kill anything to get an ID, yet I recognise that it's necessary to be certain.

I'm hopeless, really. I spent ages last night catching both a mosquito and a cranefly for release. Should never have read that Buddhist stuff when I was younger

Think I'll stick to my plan to get an old microscope to help me to identify fungi instead, and otherwise be happy with what ID's can be done on live specimens

I'm just off to look up those two books you mentioned. Thank you so much for the help.

Cheers,

Andestine

[Andestine]

P.S.

Of course the Michael Roberts one is the Collins book. Missed that

The second one looks excellent, but appears to be out of print, with second hand copies selling rather high. I'll keep looking for a bargain

Thanks again.

[Meta menardi]

Bristowe did publish another more specialised work in 2 volumes. This is "The Comity of Spiders", and it is available as a CD, republished about 5 years ago.

http://www.pisces-conservation.com/index.html?softspider2.html$softebookmenu.html

The second volume is mainly distribution lists for about 1945 and is more of historic interest.

[ChrisR]

Originally Posted by Andestine

I'm now finding myself in a quandry as I can't bear to kill anything to get an ID, yet I recognise that it's necessary to be certain.

That reminded me of a few people I have seen who carry glass tubes with wads of cotton wool or foam to help ID bumblebees and other insects that need to be examined under a hand lens. Basically you catch your insect and get it into the tube, then push the cotton wool in and kind-of gently squash it against the glass with the cotton wool/foam and this stops it moving about too much and can let you get a hand lens up to the glass and look at the vital bits before releasing it unharmed

It's obviously not suitable where the insect really needs microscopic examination but in the case of things like bumblebees, grasshoppers and most hoverflies it can allow you to see things like bristles, hair colour, wing-venation or the colour of leg segments which might be too far away or obscured when looked at on photos of just with a pair of binoculars.

The trick is to find a container/tube where the glass is good quality and doesn't distort the image too much. A hand lens up to x10 or x20 is usually enough for most things but if you fancy splashing out a bit more money you can get field microscopes that are very portable but have better optics. Nikon do a really dreamy one ... but the main problem is the price!!

Chris R.

[No.9 Spider]

The World of Spiders 1971 reprint can sometimes be found at a reasonable price, though the original is pretty expensive. I understand your view on the killing of spiders to I.D., it was something I had to wrestle with, but eventually lost!
Obviously you don't collect more than one of what is obviously the same species in a particular area. Trouble does arise however when collecting the Linyphiidae, many of which are seemingly identical 'money spiders', and duplicates are very likely here.
One area I've been collecting on for a few years, that is only 17 Hectares in area, has revealed 139 species to date, many of which would be unidentifiable without the use of a microscope.
Another book that may be of interest is The Spider by John Crompton
, not as good as Bristowe, but he writes nicely and it's fairly informative - and usually cheap!


No.9 Spider

[Geoff F]

Here are a couple of spider ID sites which I find useful Photo Gallery Arachnida

and http://www.jorgenlissner.dk/families.aspx but make sure you are using the English versions (unless you speak German and Danish).

Also this ID key site http://www.araneae.unibe.ch/Bestimmu...l_eng_Ganz.htm which was recommended by Venger recently might prove useful; once again it is multi lingual.

[Meta menardi]

One of the earliest ethologists was Henri Fabre, many of his texts were translated into English and are available as electronic texts. His "Life of the Spider" is very good, and well worth a read (just finishing it again).

The Life of the Spider by Jean-Henri Fabre - Project Gutenberg

[Andestine]

Meta menardi,

Bristowe did publish another more specialised work in 2 volumes. This is "The Comity of Spiders", and it is available as a CD, republished about 5 years ago.

http://www.pisces-conservation.com/index.html?softspider2.html$softebookmenu.html

The second volume is mainly distribution lists for about 1945 and is more of historic interest.

Thank you

I’ve bookmarked one and will look for both later (very busy morning today).

One of the earliest ethologists was Henri Fabre, many of his texts were translated into English and are available as electronic texts. His "Life of the Spider" is very good, and well worth a read (just finishing it again).

The Life of the Spider by Jean-Henri Fabre - Project Gutenberg

And I’ll download that one too. I might also look him up in the original.
I really appreciate your recommendations. Thanks again.

Andestine