Through the eyes of a spider
The identification and quantification of pollen grains in peat profiles has long been employed to interpret changes in prevailing vegetation types. However, during the 1970s the identification of fragments of invertebrate exoskeletons in peat and other Pleistocene deposits made possible the critical interpretation of past climates, habitat types and ecological relationships. Pioneer proponents of this highly skilled and revealing methodology were Russell Coope (Birmingham University), Paul Buckland and Harry Kenwood (York Archaeological Trust), Peter Skidmore (Doncaster Museum) and Maureen Girling (DoE Ancient Monuments Laboratory, London).
During the early 1970s Paul Buckland, then at Doncaster Museum, working with Maureen Girling on peat samples from one of the Somerset Levels Neolithic trackways, passed me a sample containing arachnid (spider) fragments.
Technical equipment available at Doncaster museum was rather rudimentary, so I set to work with a low powered binocular microscope illuminated by an office anglepoise lamp with a 100w light bulb, a petri dish filled with 75% ethyl alcohol and two entomological pins with which to manipulate the invertebrate fragment(s).
The peat sample eventually gave up its chitin fragment which turned out to be the cephalothorax of a Wolf spider of the family Lycosidae. These are diurnal hunting spiders which ambush insects that land on the peat surface to roost, feed, oviposit, display or bask in the sun. A primary taxonomic characteristic of the Lycosidae is that their eight simple eyes are arranged on the cephalothorax in three rows, these being 2 anterior (vertically-facing) eyes, 2 larger central forward-facing eyes (presumably affording binocular vision), below which is a row of 4 smaller forward-facing eyes.
Not only does their optical capacity enable the spiders to stalk and ambush perching insects, it gives them the ability to detect and avoid danger and to watch and presumably interpret visual signals of the sophisticated semaphore-like gesturing of the pedipalps, performed by the adult males.
In teasing the fragment from its sediment matrix, and in attempting to manoeuvre it into position for identification, the alcohol had become sufficiently heated by the 100w lightbulb that a strong convection current floated the cartwheeling cephalothorax across my field of vision. In so doing, for a moment, I found myself effectively inside the spider’s head looking out through the transparent corneas of the large central eyes. So alarmingly clear was the view, I felt I was seeing the world as the spider had seen it. My thoughts, initially of fascination soon switched to grisly apprehension, for whatever the spider had seen through those binocular lenses would have been judged and interpreted by the mental disposition of a highly evolved obligate predator.
CAH.
P.S. For further information on the optical qualities/visual abilities of a Lycosid spider see J. Clemente et al (2010) The Journal of Arachnology 38:398–406.
Field note on a warm summers evening in Doncaster.
On the airless, sultry evening of 31 July, with temperatures hovering around 25oC I took my tea into the back garden, into my own ‘bee-loud glade’. It was one of those evenings during the season of hot air-balloon races, when plump flying-ants, the Black Ants Lasius niger from beneath wonky paving slabs down the drive, were launching into their high-summer mating swarms.
I set up my folding chair between the garden pond, and a blousy clump of Great Willow-herb Epilobium hirsutum, this being earnestly worked by the local team of ginger Carder Bees Bombus pascuorum and the pond territorially patrolled by two competing and smartly striped Helophilus pendulus ‘Footballer’ hover flies.
Having cleared my plate of its baked potato, tuna, and vegetables (French and broad beans with chopped red onions), the empty platter, possibly the food residues or even the floral patterns*, seemed to attract a tiny 3mm black flying insect. This lively individual, a Lesser Dung-fly or Black Scavenger-fly Sepsis fulgens or punctatum, initially scooted around in a rather frenetic ant-like manner. After seemingly becoming familiar with its new environs it took up station on one of the plate’s printed floral swags, and as if standing to attention, proceeded to wave its wings around in a rather deliberate and presumably meaningful manner. Curiously, this semaphore-like behaviour took the form of the wings being waved about independently rather than in synchrony. The signalling was made the more conspicuous by its transparent wings each having a terminal black dot. This energetic, if lonesome little individual, after performing its intriguing gyrations for several minutes on its high status platform (this tableware having a Royal Charter no less), failed to attract any impressed females or even any competing males and departed for pastures new. What ‘s more, what entomological language, even dipterous haikus had I, this privileged primate with shelves of literature and the advantage of t’internet, failed to comprehend … well at least I hadn’t squashed my fellow traveller.
Meanwhile, a Wood Pigeon, oblivious of this little drama and unconcerned at my presence, noisily parachuted onto the scene within touching distance, to slake its thirst at the pond. Under the lowering sun, in the absence of the usual Swifts, spirals of Blackheaded Gulls and Starlings harvested flying-ants out of the hazy sky and in the absence of balloons, a mewing Buzzard, a mere speck at the edge of space, drifted past on a late afternoon thermal.
*The dinner plate was a well-used example of Royal Albert ware, one of Stoke’s best, featuring the design ‘Moss Rose’ with swags of pink roses and blue speedwells decorating the fluted rim.
C.A. Howes
Email: editorial@Dalesman.co.uk
To the Editor of the Yorkshire Dalesman
Re Myra Robinson’s item on ‘What happened to the Nature Table’
(Dalesman Aug. 2024 Vol. 86 (5): 92).
To accommodate the massed ranks of us Baby-boomers in Newby, Scarborough our school and adjacent Highfields housing estate, was built on former farmland and was therefore conveniently adjacent to hedgerows and fields, a never ending source of Nature Table paraphernalia.
Being one of those children euphemistically referred to as a slow learner, a small group of similarly designated, though I think quite originally-minded children, were consigned to the ‘Progress Class’ and placed in the nurturing hands Mrs Green. Our tiny classroom, the benign realm of the sainted Mrs Green, became our private world away from the distracting hoards of the rest of our year, and was where our Nature Table became a centrepiece of our learning and inspiration.
Mrs Green, took us on Nature walks, collecting leave of local trees and shrubs; hedgerow fruits such as Rose Hips, Hawthorn and Elder berries, and the winged ‘propellers’ of Sycamore keys; and grasses, yes grasses … and to this day I remember and can still identify Rye-grass, Cock’s-foot, Brome, Wall Barley, Timothy, Couch and Yorkshire Fog.
There was a nearby Beck, the source of Minnows, Stone Loaches and Bullheads to those adept with jam jar and string; a marsh which produced seasonal harvests of Toad and Frog-spawn and plants like Milkmaids and King-cups. In their season, samples of all these and more were hauled back, exhibited and labelled on the Nature Table.
As Myra Robinson observed (Dalesman Aug. 2024 Vol. 86 (5): 92) nature tables could be smelly affairs and probably a health hazard, and so it was with ours. I triumphantly, though naïvely donated a Skate tail, found at low tide in Scarborough Harbour. This foetid, though to me endlessly fascinating object, was duly labelled and exhibited. After the class could no longer stand the stench it was consigned to the dustbins but only after Mrs Green, a paragon of the democratic method, had convincingly/diplomatically made the case for its disposal.
C.A. Howes
Send to: editorial @dalesman.co.uk
From: colinhowes@blueyonder.co.uk
Re The Yorkshire Dalesman Jan. 2024: 53-57.
Dear Sir,
Richard Bell’s piece on the Young Naturalist’s Magazine and Geoffrey Watson’s Junior Naturalists Association revived floods of memories of those inspirational days. At the impressionable age of seven my parents took me on a visit to Wood End Natural History Museum which I found endlessly fascinating. Geoffrey Watson had just taken over as Curator and was about to launch the Junior Naturalists Association which I enthusiastically joined … and really haven’t looked back since. Somewhere I’ve still got my JNA badge with its badger’s paw logo.
Meetings were on Saturday mornings, attracted swarms of our ‘baby boomer’ generation of local kids and either Geoff Watson or his assistant Mike Clegg (later of Yorkshire TV’s ‘Clegg’s People’ fame) would give us talks on all aspects of natural history, illustrated by specimens from the collections. On other occasions, packed up with flasks and sandwiches, we would go off to look at a Badger’s sett, the Kittiwake colony on the Marine Drive, seals and migrating birds at Filey Brigg or go rock pooling and looking for fossils and dinosaur footprints at Cayton Bay, Boggle Hole or Scalby Mills. I attended field studies and outward bound courses at The Holt, Hutton Buscel, enduring some of the Spartan privation described in Richard Bell’s piece. Later, our excursions became more ambitious, including camping expeditions, surveying the wildlife of the Hebridean Islands of Eigg, Rassay and Rhum.
Annual conferences at Scarborough Central Library brought together members of JNA groups from elsewhere in England. Natural History supply firms would exhibit their collecting equipment, microscopes, literature etc. and the ever-persuasive Geoff Watson twisted the arms of top natural history authors and celebrities to appear as speakers.
The image of the characteristically pipe-smoking Major Geoffrey G. Watson amazingly conjured up the ‘stench’ of his tobacco, contrasting with the Lilac fragrance and the wax polish the attendants used on the highly polished floors at Wood End. Due to his rather distinguished balding pate, we youngsters disrespectfully (if secretly) referred to him as ‘Fuzz’ … and yes, I knew Jean Levy and Ewen Ritchie as JNA members, and remembered Tony Brewster and Geoff Stansfield both becoming leading lights in their respective subjects of Archaeology and Museum Studies.
Although it was the age of the Goon Show and Hancock’s Half Hour, the humour of ‘Young Nat’ was still eagerly looked for in our monthly magazine.
Colin Howes (Doncaster, DN4 9DS)