Spider of the Month - Notes on data and illustrations
Species selection
Data on which species selection was based are derived from my various ecological
sampling programmes over the past thirty years or so.
Generally, a species was picked for a particular month because it occurred
in relatively high abundance during that month. For some species, this
may reflect a sharp seasonal peak in the spider's numbers and the species
may be termed stenochrone, meaning narrow (steno-) in time (-chrone). For
others, they may also be abundant at other times of year, or even most
of the year, and the species is eurychrone, meaning wide (eury-) in time.
Species pictures
Most of the illustrations are adapted from the book by Dr. Mike Roberts
: The Spiders of Great Britain and Ireland, published by Harley
Books in 1985. This is an important text with an amazing series of colour
plates showing the appearance of most of the British species. You are advised
to refer to this book to see these illustrations in their original quality
and to obtain further details about the spiders. Buy yourself a copy -
it's well worth it!
A few pictures are adapted from The World of Spiders by W.S. Bristowe,
originally published in the New Naturalist series by Collins in 1958.
Finally, some have been drawn by myself de novo for these web pages.
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