P degeeri or something else.

[UB4 gardener]

initially i had these wee beasties down as young pacygnatha degeeri but having read roberts description the spiderlings make thier webs at low level, all the pictures i have taken of these have been above 3 foot and the web pictured was at approx 7ft. so any comments/opinions/ suggestions welcome

[MattPrince]

Well first off apologies that I can't help out much - the only p. degeeri that I've encountered so far have been adults.

The first picture appears to show leg annulations - but I suspect that is more an artefact of lighting and the young animals semi translucent legs, rather than actual pigmentation.

I didn't realise that pachygnatha behaved like this when young, a lot of internet sites have them down as 'not web building' which just goes to show how unreliable some sources of information are! At some point when I'm not horribly busy I'm going to take the time to sit down and actually read Roberts cover to cover.

It also made me realise the limitations of the excellent microhabitat pie-charts on the SRS website - - for this spider the big bias towards ground layer probably reflects a two way bias - its mostly adults that are identified - and the capturing is mostly during the day time (as adults go on up into the canopy at night).

There are however some records from >20cm and even >5m (though unfortunately its not possible to see if these include webs or are adults bashed from the canopy at night), so whilst a web at 7foot doesn't sound the norm - it doesn't sound beyond possibility.

It may not have helped you much, but thanks Chris - I've learnt something.

Cheers,
Matt

[UB4 gardener]

Thanks for taking the time to reply Matt, I've tried doing the reading Roberts thing but my brain just doesn't take it in the first chapters are great about webs etc and i've tried doing the family descriptions but to take in all the species ....... i stand no chance. if they ever bring out another edition the other thing i would find helpful would be a to scale illustration next to the drawing, sillohette would do as i always forget to look at sizes as i look through so what i tend to do is read up per species as i find them.

Chris

[MattPrince]

Originally Posted by UB4 gardener

Thanks for taking the time to reply Matt, I've tried doing the reading Roberts thing but my brain just doesn't take it in the first chapters are great about webs etc and i've tried doing the family descriptions but to take in all the species ....... i stand no chance. if they ever bring out another edition the other thing i would find helpful would be a to scale illustration next to the drawing, sillohette would do as i always forget to look at sizes as i look through so what i tend to do is read up per species as i find them.

Chris

I wasn't thinking of memorising it in one sitting - no chance! Just that there is a lot of interesting bits and bobs hidden away, and I've been surprised by several things (bridge spiders for example) which are clearly written in black and white within this little book.

Your silhouette idea is a good one! At least Roberts has a little ruler on each page, as do many of the FSC sheets, which is useful for sizing critters.

Cheers,
Matt

[Pepsis]

Those are not Tetragnathidae, but juveniles Zygiella sp. (Araneidae).