Dispersing Pholcus babies and the spider man

A few months back, I bought a tattered copy of the classic The World of Spiders, by W.S. Bristowe, the 38th book of the New Naturalist series. This book is a wonderful read and I recommend it to any spider enthusiast. Bristowe was in awe of spiders from an early age. He describes being greatly puzzled -  when he was able to read -  and after devouring any spider book he could get hold off, that

the great experts seemed to leave off where I wanted to begin. They had described with precision the appearence of the corpses, in words often unfamiliar to me, and had left to other people the task of writing about their habits

His book does not disappoint as he went on to describe the behaviour of many familiar and unfamiliar spiders with their own observations, displaying the author's never ending curiosity for the world of spiders. The book has photos (black and white and colour) and astonishingly beautiful line drawings by Arthur Smith, often portraying his subjects going about their business and demonstrating an incredible attention to detail. Bristowe describes his first meeting with Smith in the preface of the book:

he ended the afternoon perched on a table with a torch under one armpit whilst he busied himself with pencil and paper sketching a Pholcus on the ceiling.

Bristowe seemed to have a particular fascination with Pholcus phalangioides, the daddy long legs spider.

Pholcus did not live in my childhood home at Stoke d'Abernon, Surrey, although she thrived elsewhere only about ten miles further, so the quest of an explanation inspired me to trace her distribution. This had to await the acquisition of a motor-bycicle and then, with the impudence of youth, I zigg-zagged across England ostensibly seeking rooms in hotels or lodgings whose ceilings I viewed with nonchalant interest. My apologies are no doubt due to a host of hoteliers for gaining entry under false pretences...

 On the 23rd of August I noticed that the eggs from an egg sac a Pholcus phalangiodes female in the toilet had been holding had hatched. She was still holding the empty egg sac (above), and twenty-two  spiderlings hung still, upside down around her. In Bristowe's words:

The eggs may hatch in two or three weeks' time and the young then hang motionless like washing on clothes-lines for the next week or fortnight during which time they take no notice of any disturbance such as those caused by their mother catching an insect. Unlike nearly all other spiders, they do not molt until after they have emerged from the egg-sac.
  Directly they have recovered from this first molt they gradually begin to migrate, taking positions further and further along the wall and spacing themselves as though they had staked their claims to particular territories. Now they are interested in food and for several of them their first meal is of a brother or sister who is backward in his timetable of who dies or is injured as a result of the delicate operation of moulting.

A couple of days ago the spiderlings moulted and today, at the tender age of 12 days, some more adventurous spiderlings have started to explore and disperse away from their mother, their old skins hanging like ghostly gloves from the invisible web.

More information
Bristowe, W.S. 1958. The World of Spiders. The New Naturalist. Collins, 304 pp.

BugBooks: Chinery's Insects

Given that the oncoming months will, by necessity, subdued at BugBlog, I have decided to start a new section. I will present and review my favourite books on British bugs, books that I routinely use to find information or to identify the bugs that feature in BugBlog. Please feel free to comment with your own favourites. My first choice has to be undoubtedly Michael Chinery's Insects of Britain and Western Europe, a very informative, superbly illustrated field guide. An additional advantage is its size, soft bound and small. Its 320 pages are absolutely packed with information, including distribution pattern in Western Europe and in Britain, time of the year where they are found, behaviour and habitat. The colour illustrations are superb, detailed and accurate. Many species are illustrated with adult and caterpillar or larvae and the illustrations often shows common behaviour. A key at the beginning of the book will help you identify what group an unidentified insect belongs to. At the end of the book, there is a section with a selection of species of non-insect arthropod groups such as Spiders, Woodlice, Millipedes, Centipedes Scorpions and Harvestmen, which comes in handy.
My copy from the reprinted first edition in 1986, is getting dated. Since it was put together, many new species have arrived to the British Isles and have become now common and are not described (e.g., the ubiquitous Harlequin or the Horse Chestnut Miner). In addition, the distribution of many other species has significantly shifted northwards (e.g Speckled Wood, Comma) or they have moved to the U.K. from the continent (Tree bumblebee, Ivy Bee). But those are minor quibbles, I couldn't do without this book. There is a more recent revised edition (2007), which is a bit pricey. A proviso, this book does not include all species of European insects (there are over 100,000 described), but a selection of the most common or noticeable. Once you become familiar with an insect group - be butterflies, hoverflies or dragonflies - you will require a specialist guide.
 Overall, a must for the bug lover.