Wildlife in House and Home: Soft scale insects

I discovered these strange soft scale insects Coccus hesperdium infesting the underside of the leaves of a Cymbidium orchid on my desk. Each is about 4mm. long and resembles a miniature tortoise.

They are rather more interesting than they seem and undergo a remarkable transformation during their growth - for pictures and details, click here.

The Spider and the Fly: 2

Most flies that find their way into our house end up in one particular window, which is the highest and brighest in the house, so it's not surprising that canny spiders tend to set up their snares there too. Some titanic battles take place, where the flies almost always come off worst - I posted one here a while ago. Here's another. The striking aspect of this one was the size difference between predator and prey.

Initially the fly was caught in only a few of the spider's loosely-woven threads and when the spider abseiled down it was a bit circumspect about engaging with the struggling fly, that might still have flown off with the spider attached to it.

Eventually it subdued the fly with enough threads, then spent some time cutting it free of the windowledge, before ....

... dragging it away into the corner of the window...

... and tucking into a meal that will last it quite a while..

The Spider and the Fly

I've been watching this little spider that's been lurking in its web in the corner of the bedroom window for several weeks. I was beginning to think it was the world's most incompetent hunter - until this afternoon, when it finally struck lucky.

A bluebottle buzzed through the window, cannoned against the glass in an effort to get out again and almost immediately blundered into the web. It almost struggled free, but quick-as-a-flash the spider sunk its fangs into the tip of the fly's abdomen. For a moment I thought the fly might struggle free and carry the spider away with it but once the buzzing subsided ....

........ the spider embraced its victim, dragged its massive meal into its web and began feeding. Blackbird - whose bugblog is highly recommended - has kindly identified the spider as Amaurobius similis.

For more spiders, click here

Midnight Rambler

If you wake up thirsty in the middle of the night and go into the kitchen in bare feet, to get a drink of water, and find something squishy between your toes the chances are it may well be one of these. Yellow slugs Limax flavus are very common in cellars and kitchens.

These large slugs are almost always associated with human habitation but because they are nocturnal many people don't realise they share their homes with them. In this photo you can see the large air pore - the pneumostome - that leads into the animal's mantle cavity, a primitive lung.

The moist, cool conditions of a kitchen at night suit it perfectly, especially if there is a smooth tiled floor to glide over - and it'll probably head straight for any vegetables that might be stored in a convenient place. As dawn breaks it'll glide away again, maybe behind the washing machine or under the sink

This is a slug with a distinct 'hood', from under which two pairs of tentacles protrude.

Although they are quite large the body is very compressible - slugs have a fluid-filled body cavity (a hydrostatic skeleton) where contraction of different muscle layers can make them long and thin or short and fat in any part of their body, so they can squeeze through small gaps - after checking out what's ahead first with those eyes on stalks.

Fully extended, they are up to 10 cm. long.

When yellow slugs come out for a midnight ramble they'll explore every nook and cranny while the rest of the house sleeps, so remember, when you stagger, bleary-eyed into the kitchen for a drink of water at night - they like the feel of smooth, cool ceramic tiles under their feet as much as you do.......

More slugs here

Climbing the Walls

If you have an oldish house with some dark, damp corners - like ours - the chances are that you'll discover sooner or later that you are sharing it with daddy-long-legs spiders Pholcus phalanioides. This is a spider that is only found inside buildings in Britain. It comes from warmer climates and can't survive outside here.

I spotted this individual climbing the walls of our stair well at around midnight last night and noticed that it was carry something in its jaws.

Its cargo turned out to be its eggs, that looked like they might be close to hatching, which female Pholcus spiders carry around for safety. Even an arachnophobe would have to admire this high degree of maternal care. After dark, when we humans sleep, spiders emerge from behind bookcases, under settees and from inaccessible corners to conduct their nocturnal lives, and this one seemed to be moving home, perhaps to spin one of its untidy webs in a corner where it will catch enough prey to feed its spiderlings. If it doesn't, they'll eat each other. Pholcus is especially partial to catching and eating other spiders, including its own kind.

For more on the intriguing world of spiders take a look at the British Arachnological Society web site at http://wiki.britishspiders.org.uk/index.php5?title=Main_Page