Spitting Spider - Scytodes thoracica

    Family - Scytodidae
    Genus - Scytodes
    Female - 4-6mm / Male - 3-5mm
    These six-eyed Spiders don't make webs and seem quite nomadic.
    They have two lobed glands in their heads, the front one
    produces poison, the back one produces a glue-like substance.
    Combined they shoot a sticky poisonous gum at their prey, pinning it
    down, then move in for the kill.
    They rock from side to side when spitting, causing a zig-zag thread.

    Hunting on my hallway ceiling
    Brighton
    12.10.2011

    15.10.2011

    This is the first Spitting Spider I have found outside.
    Only just though, above my back door.
    01.06.2011

    Found this one floating in my water butt. I thought she
    was dead but she dried herself out & went on her way.
    30.03.2011

    18/08/2010
    I sometimes find these strange six-eyed spiders on my
    bathroom walls and ceiling.

    13/04/2010

Money Spiders - Linyphiidae

    Family - Linyphiidae

    The largest family of European Spiders.

    Over four hundred species in over one hundred and twenty genera.

    Most being impossible to identify without a Microscope. 

    Brighton

    17.11.2011

    Extra Mural Cemetery

    Brighton, East Sussex

    25.10.2011

    Brighton 

    06.10.2011

    Extra Mural Cemetery

    Brighton
    27.09.2011

    I found both of these during a break in heavy rains.

    Both on a peice of plastic that's placed over a water butt by my back door.

    Brighton

    06.09.2011

    Dulwich Wood
    London
    14.09.2011

    I think this is a Female Labulla thoracica
    Kingley Vale Nature Reserve
    West Sussex
    07.09.2011

    Brighton Extra Mural Cemetery

    09.07.2011

 

    Brighton Extra Mural Cemetery

    28.04.2011

     

    Money Spider

    Brighton, East Sussex

    06/08/2010

    Linyphia triangularis? Male?

    11/08/2010

    My back garden, Brighton

    31/07/2010

    "My first reaction was that this was Frontinellina frutetorum 

    (see SRS News 47: http://wiki.britishspiders.org.uk/images/8/81/Srs47.pdf )

    but I don't think the shape is quite right: Frontinellina has a

    'vertical back end'.

    There have been no further UK records since the Cambridge record

    which you will see is of doubtful provenance.
    Possibly Linyphia hortensis, but I think the spiders are in fact
    Neriene radiata which is a rare species in this country.
    It is known from a few sites in Scotland, with the Wyre Forest
    in Worcestershire for long the only known English locality.
    Distribution map to 2005 here:

    http://www.britishspiders.org.uk/html/bas.php?page=ukmap&taxon_key=nbnsys0000152322

     However, it was found in woodland near Chiddingfold in Sussex last year
    (by Graeme Lyons of Sussex Wildlife Trust), so a record
    from Brighton would not be too much of a range extension.
    I would not like to say for sure though without seeing a specimen."
    Ian Dawson (BAS) via Gary Bradley of uksafari.com

    Unfortunately the Spider had moved on before I could retrieve it.

    Extra Mural Graveyard
    Brighton
    August 2010

    ..........

    For a Video of Mating Money Spiders, click HERE

    ..........

    Money Spider feasting on a Lace Webbed Spider

    31/10/2010

 

    Back Garden, Brighton

    28/09/2010
 
    Back Garden, Brighton
    16/09/2010 

Labyrinth Spider - Agelena labyrinthica

    Family - Agelenidae
    Genus - Agelena 
    Single UK species
    Large sheetwebs with a tubular retreat.
    Found at ground level and on bushes.

    Brighton Extra Mural Cemetery
    09.07.2011

    Brighton Extra Mural Cemetery
    28.07.2011

    I Found this gravid female living on the ceiling of a Bird Hide at 
    Pulborough Brooks RSPB Nature Reserve.

    I managed to coax her out of her topside base.
    The ceiling was alive with harvestmen, lots of long legs in her web
    as well as Crane Fly wings and the remains of a large Moth. 
    Pulborough Brooks RSPB Nature Reserve
    11.07.2011

    Feasting on a Squash Bug
    Living in a Flint wall
    Stanmer
    14.07.2011  

    Photograph by Ann Hunt
    Near Singleton, West Sussex
    31.07.2011

    Lullington Heath, East Sussex
    09/06/2010
   

 

    The Heath is covered in tiny Grasshoppers which the

    Labyrinth Spiders feast on. 

    King's Standing

    Ashdown Forest
    21.05.2011

    Living comunally in the same web.
    The larger one is definately a Male, with a smaller one in the same web,
    I've not seen this before. I was focussing on the smaller (out of focus)
    Spider, when the larger one appeared behind.

    He came out still carrying his lunch!

 

    "The Agelena with swollen palps is probably a subadult male

    where the palps have not yet developed the complex structure

    seen in adults. At this time of year it is usual for there to be large variation in

    the stage at which individuals have reached, according to how

    successful they have been in finding prey etc." Peter Harvey BAS

    Lullington Heath
    Nr. Jevington
    East Sussex
    01.06.2011

    Old Lodge Nature Reserve
    Ashdown Forest, East Sussex
    30.06.2011

 

    Californian Labyrinth Spiders

    Photos by Ceridwen Falk
    2011

    Many thanks to Alice Hopkins who very kindly sent me these Photographs
    of a Labyrinth Spider she found along a Coastal path at Tintagel, Cornwall
    2011