A variable month, weather-wise - frost at night but some days very Spring-like. Blossom and buds bursting, but with the cold nights only one moth in the first moth trap of the year.
AJC Arthropoda
The Joy of Jointed Legs
Tuesday, 1 April 2025
Entomology Update - March 2025
Sunday, 23 March 2025
Knee deep in Malacostraca
Saturday, 15 March 2025
In it for the long term
Recovered grasslands need more than 75 years of continuous management to regain their biodiversity because specialized pollinators are slow to return (also applies to fungi, etc, e.g. waxcaps). This underscores the importance of preserving old grasslands as reservoirs of biodiversity. Don't let developers tell you otherwise!
Long-term management is required for the recovery of pollination networks and function in restored grasslands, Journal of Applied Ecology (2025). DOI: 10.1111/1365-2664.70017
Saturday, 1 March 2025
Entomology Update - February 2025
Friday, 21 February 2025
What's in a name? The Tangled History of the "Charnwood Spider"
- The name Cryphoeca arietina was first used by Thorell in 1871, having been previously misidentified as Hahnia pratensis by Menge.
- This species was then identified as Cryphoeca diversa by Octavius Pickard-Cambridge in 1893.
- In 1908 Pickard-Cambridge renamed it Cryphoeca recisam.
- In 1913 after wandering around Sherwood Forest, A.R. Jackson renamed it again as Tetrilus recisus (On some new and obscure British spiders. Transactions and Annual Report of the "Nottingham Naturalists' Society" 60: 20-49).
- In 1937 Eugène Simon renamed it Tetrilus diversus, and in 1953 Locket & Millidge called it Tetrilus macrophthalmus.
- In 1986 Wunderlich changed the genus (again) to Mastigusa macrophthalma, based on taxonomic priority from the species name Tuberta arietina macrophthalma used by Chyzer & Kulczyński in 1897.
- Which brings us to the taxonomic revision by Castellucci, Luchetti & Scharff in 2024, which suggested that UK specimens were likely to be a new species, Mastigusa diversa. (See: Charnwood Confusion Continues).
Friday, 14 February 2025
One (OM) Lens to Rule Them All
The Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 75-300mm f/4.8-6.7 gets looked down on by Olympus snobs because it's "not as sharp" as some of the much heavier OM Pro lenses. I've just picked up an excellent used copy of one of these compact, light, cheap (everythng is relative!) lenses. So what do I think?
For just over £200 I've got a 600mm full-frame equivalent lens which is capable of photographing a bird at the top of a tree, or at closest focus filling the frame with a 10cm long subject. And by clipping a Raynox DCR250 lens on the front I can get 1.5X magnification, filling the frame with a 1.5cm long subject. My reason for buying this lens is not to photograph birds though :-) This is the lens I want for photographing flying insects - dragonflies, butterflies, hoverflies - if only there were some flying insects around at present!
But is it sharp enough? I'll let you decide:
click for larger image
Monday, 10 February 2025
The Kleidocerys Conundrum - Resolved?
- Kleidocerys resedae and K. ericae each form sequence clusters with similar levels of relatedness. This supports the idea that they are indeed separate species.
- Kleidocerys privignus, very similar in appearance to K. resedae but which is said to occur on Alder, also appears to to be a separate species. (NB: one privignus sequence clusters within the resedae sequences (blue arrow) - presumably a misidentified specimen).