When curiosity overtakes self preservation...if you think it looks good, check it! Glad i did - the first time I've seen Haplodrassus dalmatensis and the first Cornish record in 20+ years. Yet another addition to the ridiculous assemblage on the West Lizard cliffs! @britishspiders.bsky.social

An attempt to photograph this Philodromus aureolus mid-moult on the clothes pegs revealed a very impatient male waiting for her to finish! He briefly locked horns with another male while she decided she wanted nothing to do with either of them... @britishspiders.bsky.social

Another London specialty joins the ranks of Philodromus buxi in Oxford - Anyphaena sabina @britishspiders.bsky.social

Out today in @royalsocietypublishing.org - we show that crab spiders (the ones you usually see ambushing pollinators on flowers 🕷️🌸) get worse at hunting if their eyes are covered!🫣 Sounds obvious? It's actually quite surprising, here's why... 👀 (1/8) royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article...

First up in a new #EccentricErigoninae series, where some of the weirdest Erigonine headgear is on display - Diplocephalus permixtus, a tiny (and supposedly common) spider I finally found for the first time yesterday. @britishspiders.bsky.social

Two specialist ant hunting spiders Anagena phalerata and the rare Moon Spider Callilepis nocturna around Prawle, Devon this week

The best kind of lime Jello! The iconic Micrommata virescens - the UK’s only Sparassid, my 375th British spider and perhaps the first spider I set my sights on when I started getting into arachnology back in 2022. @britishspiders.bsky.social

It can be quite satisfying to briefly stop spider recording and start spider watching instead! Alopecosa barbipes, Arctosa perita, Evarcha arcuata and Talavera petrensis from sandy Surrey heath. @britishspiders.bsky.social

Having had no luck with this fantastic ant-hunting genus before, including immatures and just-not-good-enough palp shots, I'm glad to have seen 3 of the 4 UK Zodarion in under a month. From left - Z. italicum, Z. fuscum, Z. rubidum. @britishspiders.bsky.social

Drama in the garden, with a bunch of freeloader flies (yes, that's a thing) taking advantage of a crab spider's kill on the milkweed.

Don't be shy to take on a little two-week side project. These five months will be the most precious three years of your academic journey.

I have done this cliff at Kynance to death over the last year - other than the elusive Altella lucida, I thought I had it nailed...A bit of stone turning with @graemelyons.bsky.social this week turned up Ozyptila scabricula! An amazing addition to the Lizard spider list! @britishspiders.bsky.social

Probably my favourite UK Theridiid - took a while to find my first one and now seems to appear infrequently and unpredictably. The <2 mm incredibly photogenic Pholcomma gibbum. @britishspiders.bsky.social

Two Oxon firsts from casual fencepost spidering - Walckenaeria vigilax from....a bus stop and 'what appears to be Typhochrestus simoni(!!) from a damp urban meadow. Really goes to show what an effective method it can be to meet otherwise elusive linys... @britishspiders.bsky.social

One of my favourite UK spiders!

@britishspiders.bsky.social @tylanberry.bsky.social @chalkspring.bsky.social Always nice to find a Walck! This female W. vigilax was the very last spider I picked up during a recent excursion; I’ve found it before but this one allowed me to photograph it properly for a change!

Porrhomma species and with the spine count on the legs ive ruled out all of them down to one species, of course this will be sent to my recorder to confirm but im 95% sure. Its Porrhomma cambridgei! A rare beast. From a path in damp woodland. @britishspiders.bsky.social #spiders #arachnid #spider

@britishspiders.bsky.social @tylanberry.bsky.social @cofnod.org.uk @bucksinvertgroup.bsky.social A spider that's neither rare nor particularly scarce. It has, however, taken me an awful long time and many fruitless searches to finally find Pachygnatha listeri

A spider I don't see nearly as often as I should - the delightful Green Meshweaver (Nigma walckenaeri). This one was found trapezing after dark, and even when she sat down I needed some comically acrobatic manouevres to get the shot (hence the suboptimal sharpness). @britishspiders.bsky.social

That S. bavarica is a beaut!

I think people (including myself) fail to realise just how diverse arthropods are! I was recently humbled when attempting to ID a Schizomid - a distant cousin of an arachnid group I’m very familiar with - and was presented with the beautiful and thoroughly incomprehensible word ‘propeltidium’.

A male Yellow-tailed Cribo (Drymarchon corais), right at 8 feet. These powerful serpents eat other snakes and many other creatures. At home on the ground or up in the canopy. Tapiche Reserve, NE Peru #herps #NaturePhotography #snakes 🌿

#snakesunday Photographer wishes to remain anonymous; respect that if you know this person and/or pic's. I've permission to use several. Lampropeltis elapsoides, FL, USA; Pre-pub teaser😁 Specific details of locality will be withheld. Pic's to be in upcoming publication by yours truly, et al. Enjoy!🐍

snake-spider-et-al.weebly.com/spiders.html A 2-year long project which seems to have reached some semblance of fruition - cataloguing all the species I've photographed (properly). c. 600 of the 800 odd species on this site are spiders, of which over 100 are Linyphiids! @britishspiders.bsky.social

Congratulations to my hard-working snakey graduate student, @hippieherper.bsky.social ! Well-deserved! Check out his work on garter snake venom evolution in IOB 🐍 ☠️ academic.oup.com/iob/article/...

Pales in comparison to @chalkspring.bsky.social's, but here's my Spider Top 10 for 2025! I've stuck to lifers and gone for rewarding over rare. One genus will show up thrice, and I will not apologise! @britishspiders.bsky.social @tylanberry.bsky.social @graemelyons.bsky.social

What a collection!

it’s amazing how diverse ants are 🙇🐜

The mighty Sunda King Cobra hunting along a track through the Singapore mangroves. It passed by humans young and old without slightest bit of interest. Deadly is not always dangerous.

A couple of Cat-eyed Snakes (Leptodeira ornata) found on the crawl while hiking at night! This is quite the emblematic genus in Latin America, fairly common but extremely cool! #herps 🐍

A Mangrove pit viper (Trimeresurus purpureomaculatus) from Singapore with damage on both eyes. I was looking for a much bigger snake that day, but the day got off to a good start when I saw someone taking videos of something moving on a shrub barely a metre from the edge of the railing!

A male Cyrtophora cylindroides from Singapore - I was thoroughly confused when I found it in a space web (perhaps I could be excused for fruitlessly scouring Theridiid literature until @kalakemangga.bsky.social corrected me). Quite happy with the shot! @britishspiders.bsky.social

This is the Sunburst Candy Spider from Thailand. Not AI (sucks to have to declare this). Very real and had been on my wish list for a long time. The taxonomic placement is unclear, so we are leaving it at Cyrtarachninae.

Chilean Recluse (Loxosceles laeta)

Things that can happen while filming Portia in the field: we had a (not so) little visitor wandering by with his chicks! Not sure who was more surprised… #cassowary #portia #daintree #storiesfromthefield

My 3rd record for Walckenaeria obtusa at this woodland site, all 3 have been in moss under pines, all my W.nudipalpis records from that site are from leaf litter under sweet chestnut trees. @britishspiders.bsky.social @tylanberry.bsky.social @graemelyons.bsky.social

What a find! A spider which seems oddly reluctant to be discovered

What a privilege to have seen both ends of the UK's spider size spectrum - the magnificent Cardinal Spider (Tegenaria parietina) and the diminutive Theonoe minutissima within a few days of each other - a 50x difference in legspan! @britishspiders.bsky.social

Good to finally get across to the border and do a bit of conifer wood bashing in Devon. Didn't take me long to find the mossy habitat for Centromerus serratus. It was accompanied by the usual Saaristoa firma and Porrhomma pallidum. @britishspiders.bsky.social @graemelyons.bsky.social @cofnod.org.uk

A dream come true: seeing a pelican spider (Archaeidae) in the field Austrarchaea griswoldi, found in Eungella National Park, Queensland

I am dangerously behind on #arachtober: Day 11 - K for Koppe (Liocranidae) - Asian ground-hunters Day 12 - L for Leucauge (Tetragnathidae) - colourfully patterned orbweavers Day 13 - M for Mastigusa (Cybaeidae) - palps that need no introduction @britishspiders.bsky.social

I knew I Zora difference!! How ridiculoudly satisfying to see pics of all four of these species together. Clockwise from top left - armillata, spinimana, silvestris, nemoralis. @britishspiders.bsky.social @cofnod.org.uk @graemelyons.bsky.social @chalkspring.bsky.social @ajcann.bsky.social

#arachtober A-Z: Day 9: I is for Indoxysticus - a monotypic crab spider genus with a very distinct abdomen pattern Day 10: J is for Jerzego - an oddly named genus of jumping spiders that seem to mimic ants and hate being photographed @britishspiders.bsky.social

#arachtober A-Z: Day 6 - F for Floronia - the chameleon spider Day 7 - G for Gnaphosa (the best spider genus in the best spider family, no other opinions accepted) Day 8 - H for Heteropoda - giant huntsman spiders (pictured is the delightful H. davidbowie) @britishspiders.bsky.social

@britishspiders.bsky.social @tylanberry.bsky.social @graemelyons.bsky.social Me: I don't have a favourite UK spider Also me: 😍 #Arachtober

Wacky unicornis - two from Sundays efforts in the Wicken fens. I can't spell Walckenaeria. Or can I?

Don't know if I'll have time for a daily #arachtober find this year, so I'll go with an A-Z of genera instead. A for Amyciaea (Thomisidae), an ant-mimic B for Bijoaraneus (Araneidae) - 'kidney garden spider' C for Corinnomma (Corinnidae), another ant-mimic @britishspiders.bsky.social

The Ig Nobel is incredible , one year an Indian guy won it for calculating the average surface area of an elephant and during his acceptance they had an elephant hold up a sign with the surface area of the scientist on it, they do showbiz better than the Oscars

In the UK, finding a new salticid is a privilege. In Singapore, over 10 species in 5 hours isn’t unusual! Here’s a selection - from left: Epeus sp., Viciria pavesii, Chalcovietnamicus daiqini and the iconic and intelligent spider-hunter Portia fimbriata. @britishspiders.bsky.social

No. 2 and 1 in the weirdest spider palps contest (UK chapter). Left: Labulla thoracica, right: Mastigusa arietina. Lucky enough to see both within a week, and finally photograph Mastigusa properly (thanks to @chalkspring.bsky.social) @tylanberry.bsky.social @britishspiders.bsky.social