Table Of ContentWWIILLDDGGuuiiddeess
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Published by Princeton University Press,
41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street,
Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TR
press.princeton.edu
Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to
Permissions, Princeton University Press
First published 2017
Second Edition 2020
Copyright © 2017, 2020 by Princeton University Press
Copyright in the photographs remains with the individual photographers.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
Library of Congress Control Number 2020941052
ISBN 978-0-691-20474-1
Ebook ISBN 978-0-691-21180-0
Production and design by WILDGuides Ltd., Old Basing, Hampshire UK.
Printed in Italy
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
preceding page Frosted orb webs are incredible, beautiful and awe-inspiring, and particularly so
when the biology of their spider ‘architects’ is appreciated a little more.
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Contents
Foreword ........................................................................................................................... 5
Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 7
Spider anatomy – naming the parts ......................................................................... 12
Glossary .......................................................................................................................... 14
Spider biology ............................................................................................................... 22
Anatomy – a brief overview ................................................................................................ 20
Silk production .................................................................................................................... 21
Webs .................................................................................................................................... 23
Retreats ................................................................................................................................ 26
Courtship and mating ......................................................................................................... 26
Egg-sacs ............................................................................................................................... 31
Development and growth ................................................................................................... 32
Dispersal .............................................................................................................................. 33
Longevity ............................................................................................................................. 35
Parasites ............................................................................................................................... 35
Food capture and feeding ................................................................................................... 36
Coloration ............................................................................................................................ 40
Spiders and people ....................................................................................................... 41
When, where and how to find spiders ....................................................................... 43
Essential equipment ............................................................................................................ 45
Additional equipment ......................................................................................................... 46
Collecting techniques ......................................................................................................... 47
IDENTIFYING SPIDERS
Guide to spider families and genera .......................................................................... 70
Guide to webs ............................................................................................................... 108
Guide to egg-sacs ........................................................................................................ 121
Introduction to the species accounts ..................................................................... 134
THE SPECIES ACCOUNTS (see also the following two pages) .................... 136–442
Accidental imports ..................................................................................................... 443
Working in the field .................................................................................................... 445
Recording spiders ....................................................................................................... 446
Legislation and conservation ................................................................................... 448
Legislation ........................................................................................................................ 448
Red Lists ............................................................................................................................ 449
British Rarity Status ............................................................................................................ 450
Amber List ......................................................................................................................... 450
List of British spiders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 451
Further reading and useful websites ...................................................................... 478
The British Arachnological Society ......................................................................... 481
Acknowledgements and photographic credits ..................................................... 482
Index ............................................................................................................................... 487
Alphabetical list of genera with species accounts ................................................ 496
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Foreword
From the fi rst time a jumping spider turned to ‘look at
me’ I was bewitched by spiders. Eight, lustrous, obsidian
lenses seemed to refl ect my own curiosity in their depths.
I was looking at an animal that surprised me at such a
fundamental level I could never look at one in the same way
ever again.
Spiders up until that point hadn’t really fi gured in my life
much, other than as the source of the occasional display of
squealing hysteria from a genuinely arachnophobic mother.
They had been merely inconvenient things with eight legs
to be smuggled out of the house surreptitiously by my Dad
before she noticed. They (or their side-eff ects of cobwebs)
may have been a point of shame to my house-proud
mother, but that was pretty much it.
Frightening to think how close I came to growing up like
the majority of the populace. If it hadn’t been for that
almost personable brief gaze from a 6 mm specimen of the
Zebra Spider Salticus scenicus, I might have continued in ignorance.
As it happens, spiders amaze me; they continually blow my mind – not only in their
bedizened beauty, but by their ecological ingenuity.
If I ever want to rediscover a sense of adventure, to have my socks well and truly knocked
off , or simply to enter a world that is as alien as any my imagination might conceive, then
I go and seek out a spider.
With this book in hand I suggest you have a go at doing the same – lower your horizons
and get down on your hands and knees and you will soon understand what I’ve been
talking about.
With spiders, contrary to their reputation, there is nothing to fear other than a life of
ignorance and with it all the wonderful pleasures that you’ll miss out on if you don’t.
Let them introduce themselves as one of the most diverse, varied, successful groups of
animals on earth, and arguably the most misunderstood.
As far as British invertebrates go, this book represents the ‘fi nal frontier’ of the fi eld
naturalist – at last a guide to these amazing creatures (the only photographic guide since
the now out-of-print Country Life Guide to Spiders by Dick Jones). This book will hopefully
mean there will be another generation of enthusiastic naturalists that will be transfi xed
and entranced by the gaze of a little jumping spider.
Devon, June 2020
The orbweb of a Wasp Spider Argiope bruennichi (Araneidae) showing the zigzag stabilimentum
(page 119).
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The density of spiders is only fully appreciated when myriad webs are revealed on a frosty day.
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Introduction
Spiders are one of a very few groups of invertebrates that seem comprehensively to divide
people into the fearful and the fascinated. A major purpose of this book is to swing the
pendulum towards the ‘fascinated’. Spiders certainly need, and deserve, more friends and
admirers.
Spiders are found almost everywhere: in gardens, urban spaces and waste ground, from the
tops of mountains to the seashore; and, of course, they share our homes. You do not have to
go to special places to find and observe them, they are all around you; indeed, it is difficult to
ignore them. They will be encountered while gardening, turn up unexpectedly in the bath,
or parachute onto your clothes on a sunny day. On any cool, moist morning, or after a night’s
frost, spiders’ intricate webs are displayed in all their architectural glory on buildings and
vegetation. It is always striking just how many webs are revealed on these occasions, but also
bear in mind that many other spider species will be present that do not spin webs at all. The
density of spiders varies widely according to habitat but has been estimated to reach up to
800 in each square metre of an uncut meadow. All spiders are predators and therefore have
an impact on prey populations. This can be beneficial to humans by, for instance, controlling
the build-up of pests in arable fields. Spiders, in turn, provide food for a wide range of animals
including other spiders, birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles. They therefore play a vital
role in most terrestrial ecosystems and deserve a much greater level of understanding and
appreciation than they receive at present.
Britain’s spider fauna is impoverished compared with that of northern continental Europe
– a result of past glaciations and our island status. Even so, there are currently around 680
species, which can be split into two broad groups, rather like the more familiar micro- and
macro-moths. The ‘micros’ consist mostly of the money spiders (members of the family
Linyphiidae) whereas the ‘macros’ are all the rest, although there is a certain degree of size
overlap between them.
This book describes exactly what spiders are, examines their structure, introduces aspects
of their intriguing lives and explores the vital roles they play in nature. This leads on to their
classification. The recognition of differences between spider families, with their characteristic
appearances, life histories, hunting techniques and preferred habitats, is a major step towards
identification.
There is a view amongst some naturalists that good photographs can replace collected
specimens as a basis for species identification. Although this is frequently the case for
some invertebrate groups, such as macro-moths and butterflies, only a minority of British
spiders can be identified with absolute certainty from whole-body photographs. In some
cases, macrophotographs of the genitalia may be sufficient but often the angle of view is
wrong or hairs obscure vital features. It remains the case that the conclusive identification of
most spiders is only achieved by examining the genital structures of preserved specimens
under a microscope. Although such details are beyond the scope of this book, by using a
combination of physical, behavioural, egg-sac and web characteristics, many species or
species groups can be recognized in the field.
The identification of spiders in the field often involves the examination of key features that are
small and require the animal to be temporarily restrained and examined with a ×10 hand lens
(see page 45) (or by using binoculars the wrong way round). As a consequence, the majority
of the money spiders, which are only a few millimetres long, usually unpatterned and with few
diagnostic features visible under ×10 magnification, are not considered in detail here. However,
an annotated List of British spiders, covering all species recorded, is provided (page 451).
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INTRODUCTION
In this second edition of the book, the process
Technical terms
of homing in on which family your spider
There are inevitably some technical terms
belongs to has been thoroughly revised, and used when referring to particular features of
an innovative graded approach has been a spider’s anatomy and web structure. These
introduced (see Identifying spiders (page terms are highlighted in bold text where first
50)). This comprises: used in the book. Those in brown text are
illustrated on pages 12–19 and defined in
l Comparison photographs of commonly
the Glossary (page 14). Terms in black text
found species (page 52), together with are not illustrated but are defined in the
supplementary pointers (page 56) such Glossary).
as web types, egg-sacs and behaviour.
l A general guide to spider appearance (page 58) in the form of a table that describes the
main features of each British spider family, including body shape, leg length and eye pattern.
l Comprehensive charts providing details of how families can be identified through
examination of eye patterns (page 66).
l An illustrated guide (page 70) that will enable identification to family and, in some
cases, to genus or even species level.
Spider webs and, in some cases, egg-sacs can give clues to a spider’s identity, and so a Guide
to egg-sacs (page 121) and a Guide to webs (page 108) are therefore included. The bulk of
the book thereafter is devoted to fully illustrated Species accounts (pages 136–443), with
introductory information on each family and its genera. The aim is to help you to put a name
to the distinctive species of British spiders in the field, highlighting where identification is
only possible to genus level without the use of a microscope. This is followed by sections
covering Accidental imports (page 443), Working in the field (page 445), Recording spiders
(page 446) and Legislation and conservation (page 448).
The ‘macro’ spiders and a minority of money spiders that are larger and patterned, or have
unique features or specific habitat characteristics, form the subjects of the 404 separate
species accounts. These accounts provide descriptions and photographs of salient features to
look for, details of the habitats in which the species is found, the time of year when adults are
likely to be present, and the type of web (if any). Also included are distribution maps showing
the density of records and therefore, very approximately, the likelihood of encountering the
species in any particular area of the country. These maps are based on the more than one
million records held on the British Arachnological Society’s Spider Recording Scheme (SRS)
database as of mid-2020 (page 446). Like many invertebrates, spiders respond to changes
in the environment and the SRS data allow the distributions of species to be mapped over
time and changes identified; significant shifts in range are discussed in the relevant species
accounts.
Although almost all spiders are illustrated in the Species accounts, in many cases closely
related species are indistinguishable in the field. Lists are given of the similar species that
require microscopic examination to tell them apart, and the section on Further reading (page
478) provides information on how to do this.
The books that are currently available on British spiders, such as Michael Roberts’ three-
volume The Spiders of Great Britain and Ireland (1985, 1987) and his Collins Field Guide to
the Spiders of Britain and Northern Europe (1995), are essential aids to the identification of
preserved spiders viewed under a microscope. However, these works are not really designed
to be used in the field with a hand lens. Dick Jones’ The Country Life Guide to Spiders of Britain
and Northern Europe (1983), the first comprehensive photographic guide to macro-spiders,
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