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The Spider Club News Editor: Joan Faiola SEPTEMBER 2011 - Vol.27 #3 WEE RIGGER – A POEM IN SCOTS by Robert Menzies Banks Ye creep alang the skirting board You creep along the skirting board Ye scamper ower the flair You scamper over the floor Ye hide in wee dark corners You hide in small dark corners Pretending ye’re no there. Pretending you’re not there. Sic industrious wee craters, Such industrious little creatures Why are ye sae reviled? Why are you so reviled? Why dae Arachnid haters Why do Arachnid haters By yer presence feel sae riled? By your presence feel so riled? Ah ken mesel, Ah tend toward I know myself, I tend toward A certain admiration, A certain admiration For riggin skills, Ah wad award For rigging skills, I would award A very high citation. A very high citation. For ance Ah was a rigger tae, For once I was a rigger too, No aa that lang ago, Not all that long ago, Compared tae you, aa Ah kin say Compared to you all I can say Is, Ah was awfy slow! Is, I was very slow. Ye can rig baith stayer an braces, You can rig both stayer and braces, An anchor wi a tweek, And anchor with a tweak, Ye can feenish in twae meenits You can finish in two minutes Tegenaria sp. They are really not Whit wad take me, neer a week! What would take me near a week! so small! Photographed in Scotland I’m glad little beastie, you’re so Ah’m gled, wee Beastie, ye’re 21.9.2009 by Astri Leroy sae wee small For I would bet my shirt For Ah wad bet mah sark, That had you been as big as me That had ye been as big as me I’d have long been out of work. Ah’d lang been oot o wark .. Spider Club News September 2011 P a g e 1 Contents Page No. Who are we? 3 Mission Statement 3 Contact Details 3 From the Hub Chairman’s letter 4 From the Editor 5 Books Book Review – Spider Communication by Astri Leroy 6 How to catalogue your book collection! 7 Events Reports National Science Week Open Day 8 Sammy Marks Market 8 ID Workshop at Ditsong Museum of Nat.Hist. 9 Sandfields and Forests Sept visit 10 Sorting Session at ARC 11 Interesting Sightings Yankee Mygalomorph in Joburg 11 Other Mygalomorph sightings 12 Arachnids in England and Switzerland 13 ARACHNID SCIENCE Platnick Catalog V.12 14 Euprosthenops Research in Sweden 14 Mantispid behaviour unchanged in 44 million years 16 Britain’s Ladybird Spider reintroduced 18 i5K Insect and Other Arthropod Genome Sequencing 19 Initiative On-Line Resources for Arachnology 20 Photo Gallery Spider Eyes – Photos of John Leroy 21 Spider Club diary 23 2011/2012 WE RESERVE COPYRIGHT ON OUR OWN MATERIAL. PLEASE CONTACT US AT [email protected] for permission to use any of this content. DISCLAIMER THE VIEWS OF THE CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS PUBLICATION DO NOT NECESSARILY COINCIDE WITH THOSE OF THE SPIDER CLUB OF SOUTHERN AFRICA. Spider Club News September 2011 P a g e 2 Who are we? The Spider Club of Southern Africa is a non-profit-making organisation. Our aim is to encourage an interest in arachnids – especially spiders and scorpions - and to promote this interest and the study of these animals by all suitable means. Membership is open to anyone – people interested in joining the club may apply to any committee member for information. Field outings, day visits, arachnid surveys and demonstrations, workshops and exhibits are arranged from time to time. A diary of events and outings is published at the end of this newsletter. Mission Statement “The Spider Club provides a fun, responsible, social learning experience, centred on spiders, their relatives and on nature in general.” Contact Us WEBSITE: http://www.spiderclub.co.za EMAIL ADDRESS: [email protected] POSTAL ADDRESS: P.O. Box 390, Ruimsig, 1732 Visit our website, and send us photos and news that we can post there! Committee Treasurer Jaco Le Roux 083 258 8969 [email protected] Editor Joan Faiola 082 565 6025 [email protected] Chairman Astri Leroy 073 168 7187 [email protected] Charlotte Livingstone 083 439 6614 [email protected] Paul Cowan 082 773 5724 [email protected] Christy Mathie [email protected] Webmaster: Irmi Le Roux www.spiderclub.co.za Spider Club News September 2011 P a g e 3 From the hub ………………………………………….. What have you gained from being a member of the Spider Club of Southern Africa? What do you like about the club? What don‟t you like? We would love to have feedback from club members, so let us know and send your ideas, complaints or compliments to [email protected]. We would still like to boost club membership, so if you can think of good ways of recruiting new members, please let us know. If you have a friend or friends who just MIGHT be interested, bring them along to one of our club events. You would be surprised how many otherwise bush-wise folk have no clue about arachnids. Bring along your birding friends, the tree huggers, big game watchers and even hunters. They will be amazed by our animals! If you know someone who is (quite irrationally) afraid of spiders, maybe joining The Spider Club will help them get over it, after all most spiders are small and very beautiful. So bring your friends along to your Spider Club events. The Highveld and Bushveld areas are gearing up for summer, so get ready guys! Once the rains start there will be plenty to see out there. The lucky members from other, wetter parts of the country are already sending in photographs of interesting spiders, so the “season” is really starting! In fact, we have just received a photograph of a strange male mygalomorph sent in by Dave Turner. The spider in question was seen and photographed in Honeydew, Gauteng and is probably a male AMERICAN Purse Web Spider Sphodros rufipes. How on earth did it land on a lady‟s chest on the West Rand, South Africa? One of my fears has always been that inevitably some of these exotic animals will escape or be released and become established in the wild. Many come from countries with similar habitats to ours and if they DO establish colonies may quickly outcompete our local fauna which in itself poses problems, and many of them could pose threats not only to the integrity of OUR biodiversity but actually be a threat to people. Oh, horror! On the other hand there are far too many people, so maybe that‟s a good thing. If you know of great places to visit this summer, let someone on the committee know on [email protected]. Talking of which you will see quite a change in the committee … Alistair our super Chairman last year has abandoned us and is now working in Nigeria so we Spider Club News September 2011 P a g e 4 don‟t REALLY have one. We are headless so to speak, but it seems the web has caught me again, which is why I am giving you a hard time „From the Hub”, As usual our newsletter is full of interesting articles, reports and forthcoming events. Please diarise these and come and join in. Don’t be an armchair arachnologist! Hang in there!! Astri Leroy, reluctantly, once more at The Hub. ________________________________________________________________________ From the Editor: Spring finally arrived after a tough winter, and then suddenly we were in summer! I am finding lots of mature wolf and nursery web spiders in my garden, all ready to breed. It all looks very promising for a productive summer of spidering. We really do need your help at YEBO GOGGA this year. Astri and John Leroy are away for the whole of October, and Alistair Mathie is in Nigeria. Without these stalwarts to help us run the stand, we really are in dire straits. Even if you can only manage an hour or two at the stand, please contact me. We can throw in a complimentary Yebo t-shirt if you come along to help. My thanks for Astri’s assistance with this issue. Yours in spidering Joan Spider Club News September 2011 P a g e 5 Books BOOK REVIEW – BY Astri Leroy SPIDER COMMUNICATION Mechanisms and Ecological Significance Edited by Peter N. Witt and Jerome S. Rovner Hard cover, 440 pages. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey. 1982. ISBN 0-691-08291-X Although this book was published almost 30 years ago, it is still vitally relevant and (to me at least) utterly fascinating. There are 10 chapters by well-known arachnologists that cover not just methods of communication but interactions between individual spiders, social spacing and behavioural responses to conspecifics, prey and predators. Some of the chapters are easy to understand, some – I must admit – are more difficult but all are enthralling. This book opened a whole new world of spider behaviour to me when I was just learning how to identify a few familiar species. It had not really dawned on me that most spiders are social creatures with a need to communicate and when I understood that they actually “spoke” to each other, serenaded potential mates and chased away rivals ACOUSTICALLY, I was quite blown away. You WILL notice that systematics have changed since the book was published. For example the genera Nephila and Nephilengys were at that time placed in the family Araneidae, but that doesn’t alter their behaviour and anyway the spiders themselves don’t know we have moved them around the taxonomical chess board! Don’t let that put you off; it is a fascinating book if you are interested in spider behaviour.
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  • A Checklist of the Spiders (Arachnida, Araneae) of the Polokwane Nature Reserve, Limpopo Province, South Africa

    A Checklist of the Spiders (Arachnida, Araneae) of the Polokwane Nature Reserve, Limpopo Province, South Africa

    Original Research A CHECKLIST OF THE SPIDERS (ARACHNIDA, ARANEAE) OF THE POLOKWANE NATURE RESERVE, LIMPOPO PROVINCE, SOUTH AFRICA SUSAN M. DIPPENAAR 1Department of Biodiversity School of Molecular & Life Sciences University of Limpopo South Africa ANSIE S. DIPPENAAR-SCHoEMAN ARC-Plant Protection Research Institute South Africa MoKGADI A. MoDIBA1 THEMBILE T. KHozA1 Correspondence to: Susan M. Dippenaar e-mail: [email protected] Postal Address: Private Bag X1106, Sovenga 0727, Republic of South Africa ABSTRACT As part of the South African National Survey of Arachnida (SANSA), spiders were collected from all the field layers in the Polokwane Nature Reserve (Limpopo Province, South Africa) over a period of a year (2005–2006) using four collecting methods. Six habitat types were sampled: Acacia tortillis open savanna; A. rehmanniana woodland, false grassland, riverine and sweet thorn thicket, granite outcrop; and Aloe marlothii thicket. A total of 13 821 spiders were collected (using sweep netting, tree beating, active searching and pitfall trapping) represented by 39 families, 156 determined genera and 275 species. The most diverse families are the Thomisidae (42 spp.), Araneidae (39 spp.) and Salticidae (29 spp.). A total of 84 spp. (30.5%) were web builders and 191 spp. (69.5%) wanderers. In the Polokwane Nature Reserve, 13.75% of South African species are presently protected. Keywords: Arachnida, Araneae, diversity, habitats, conservation In the early 1990s, South Africa was recognised, in terrestrial and KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and the Eastern Cape. terms, as a biologically very rich country and even identified Savanna is characterised by a grassy ground layer and a distinct as the world’s ‘hottest hotspot’ (Myers 1990).