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below. Also in bushy vegetation we found the
small orb webs of Meta, a grey, brown and white-
patterned spider, very common in this type of
habitat. Meta species used to belong in the
family Araneidae, with Araneus and Zilla, but is
now placed in a family of its own, the Metidae.
By beating trees over a white cloth tray we
discovered Anyphaena accentuata, a small, brown
spider with an unmistakeable black mark on the
abdomen, and the scaffolding webs of tiny,
immature Theridion species were in evidence on
closer inspection of the foliage.
Running from our footfalls were dark brown wolf
spiders, Pardosa lugubris, at this end of the
season all females and some of them still carrying
egg sacs. In the heather ran another hunting
spider Zora spinimana. Moving surprisingly
nimbly through heather and low vegetation were
harvestmen looking for scraps of food.
Phalangium opilio females were recognised, but
there were no males found to demonstrate the
strange horn-like appendages on their palps.
There were males and females of Leiobunum rotundum,
one of our most long-legged harvestmen.
Eventually the party moved into the wooded part
of the Backwarden, where we tried our luck at
sieving leaf litter for spiders. Those that we
did find, however, were immature Linyphiid
spiders, making species identification very
difficult. There were plenty of "cobwebs" slung
across the openings of holes and crevices in
rotting wood, but no amount of tempting with
tuning fork or grass blades would tempt the owners
out
Giving up in the woodland we made our way to one
of the plant choked ponds on the Reserve, now
almost dried out after the hot weather, where we