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AN UPDATE ON THE SPIDER Nigma walckenaeri
Updated map showing the distribution of Nigma walckenaeri in Essex,
(the map has been made using the computer program DMAP by Dr Alan Morton)
Thank you to those members who responded to my appeal in the last Newsletter to look
out for Nigma walckenaeri in their gardens and local area. I have received samples of
the spider from Alf Gudgion who sent me a female from his house near Harlow, a
completely new part of the county for the species and from Dennis Brown who sent me
one from a Forsythia leaf in his garden in Hawkwell, a new 10 square record. Ray
Ruffell has also found the spider in a new part of the Colchester area and one was found
near Wanstead Park during a recent Essex Spider Group meeting. I have also now found
it in East Ham, North Woolwich, Stanford-le-Hope South Woodham Ferrers and
Burnham-on-Crouch. Clearly it is much more widespread than previously thought but the
question remains - is it spreading its range orhas it simply been under-recorded all the
time?
The spider is still worth looking out for - I have found females still in their characteristic
webs surviving on bushes outside at the end of October, and also the spider sometimes
seems to come indoors in the winter. Don't forget to look at the leaves of your house
plants!
Peter Harvey, 9 Kent Road, Grays, Essex, RM17 6DE
A NEW RECORD OF THE CAVE SPIDER Meta menardi
I have also received a number of spiders from Don Hunford in Benfleet who reports the
likely occurence of the Cave spider Meta menardi. He has sent me samples of the
characteristic spherical eggsacs about 15mm in diameter which are suspended from the
surfaces found in dark damp places such as caves, cellars, water conduits and possibly
also abandoned badger tunnels. The only other Essex records of this spider known to me
are for Grays Chalk Quarry and at Marks Hill in the Basildon area. It is not recorded very
often in the country as a whole but it does seem that the species may be quite widespread
and under-recorded because of the nature of its habitat. Unfortunately there is a very
similar but rarer closely related species Meta bourneti, which means that certain
determination of the species requires examination of male palp or female epigyne of the
spider with a microscope.