7
Ants are excellent indicator species for ecological monitoring, they have a fascinating
biology but this is often very poorly understood.They really deserve more attention and I
would ask members of the Field Club to help if they can. 1 would welcome records,
voucher specimens and observations for ants from anywhere in the county.
The following provisional distribution maps are based essentially on the recent records
of the Essex Spider Group, records made between 1978 and 1986 by the previous County
Recorder for spiders Kate Rowland, together with other records held at the Colchester
Natural History Museum and records made Colin Plant and the Passmore Edwards
Museum survey team in 1984-5. Older records mapped by
K.E.J. Barrett in the provisional national atlas produced in Ponera coarctica (Latreille)
1977 and 1979 by the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology are not
yet included.
• records 1980 on
o recordsbefore 1980
Myrmica lobicornis Nylander Myrmica rubra (Linnaeus) Myrmica ruginodis Nylander
Myrmica sabuleti Meinert Myrmica scabrinodis Nylander Myrmica schencki Emery
Myrmica specioides Bondroit Leptothorax acervorum (Fabricius) Leptothorax nylanderi (Foerster)