Circus of the Spineless #23

Welcome to the 23rd edition of Circus of the Spineless - a monthly celebration of insects, arachnids, molluscs, crustaceans, worms and most anything else that wiggles.

As I'm sure you've already heard, the UK is experiencing its wettest summer since records began. In South Yorkshire, where I live, we've had week after week of leaden skies and downpours, not to mention the worst floods in living memory. As they say round here, it's been "lovely weather for ducks".

As far as invertebrates are concerned, it's been lovely weather for molluscs. The garden is crawling with slugs and snails but, apart from a few hardy bumblebees, there is a distinct shortage of flying insects. Thankfully, the weather has turned warm and sunny in the past few days. Let's hope the rainy season is finally over!

Due to the rotten weather there have been precious few opportunities for me to indulge in my favourite summer pastime of photographing butterflies. Instead, I have been prowling the blogs of other naturalists, shamelessly coveting their shots of sun-drenched Lepidoptera. Some fine examples are provided by The Endangered Regal Fritillary at The Hawk Owl's Nest and The Swamp Metalmark: My Butterfly Romance at Gossamer Tapestry.

When it comes to photographing invertebrates, I could learn a thing or two from my compatriots at Littlecote Nature Reserve who, despite the weather, have found a novel way of enticing exotic insects into the garden. They spill the chutney in Big and beautiful - The Hornet.

The hornets of Littlecote are dwarfed by some of their transatlantic cousins. The eastern cicada killer may look fearsome but, as Nuthatch explains, it's a sheep in wolf's clothing.

Picking up the lupine theme, Rebecca of Pocahontas County Fare presents an intimate sequence of photos of a Wolf Spider With Cubs.

Spiders are surprisingly popular this month. Sissy serves up no fewer than three posts about arachnids: Silk Stalkings, Function follows form and I have many curious things to show you.  Wanderin' Weeta has been Spider watching too. As Andrea points out in Garden Buzz: Green Man, Jumping Spider, maybe we should all be keeping a close eye on our eight-legged friends.

Beetle-related posts are a bit thin on the ground, but Urtica presents this cracking shot of the longhorn beetle, Enaphalodes rufulus. Anna contemplates a Carrollian coleopteron in The plot-driven beetle, whilst Sissy discovers ladybugs and their larvae in When plants garden.

Posts about the true bugs are even scarcer, but Duncan of Ben Cruachan Blog has found two clusters of colourful jassids, which he assures us are Friendly fellows.

Several birders have trained their binoculars on invertebrates this month. YC of Singapore's Bird Ecology Study Group tells us about Birds and centipedes. Birdchick writes about apiculture in Son of a Beeswax! Corey of 10,000 Birds discovers Dragonflies: Our Natural Allies.  In her Naturalist Notebook, Summer describes the Dragons and Damsels of the Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge. Neil of microecos has also been studying Odonata in Meadowhawk d.

I live a long way from the coast (by UK standards), so I'm looking forward to exploring the beaches and rock-pools of Cornwall this October. To keep me going 'til then we have a trio of posts from the seaside. Kevin of The Other 95% asks What the hell is a chaetognath? Anna discovers ascidians in The Mary Quant Jelly Thing & other surprises from the sea, whilst Sissy finds molluscs on the beach in A world in a grain of sand.

Over at the Invasive Species Weblog, Jenn sees the lighter side of the UK's recent floods: Turns Out You Really Can Get Crabs From A Toilet Seat. Not to be outdone, Science Made Cool offers an equally bizarre story from Europe: Gourmet Parasites.

This month's award for productivity must go to Marcus at The annotated budak, who submitted a grand total of nine posts: Anemones abloom at Pulau Hantu, Stars on a sandflat: life on Beting Bronok, Moon crab, Tentacle pwn, i'm on yur arms, stealing yur feathers, Urchins black and white, Anemone shrimp, White hopper and Peanut worm.

To round up the stragglers, here's a collection of posts that have little in common, other than a fascination with invertebrata. Dave of Via Negativa presents a series of photos of Holey plants and bugs. Anna discovers the The joys of bad housekeeping: The slattern and the lantern fly. Sissy finds some colourful moths Waiting in the underwings. Finally, Andrea asks Bee or Not a Bee?

Don't forget that the next edition of Circus of the Spineless will be hosted by Naturalist Notebook.

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Comments

[Sissy Willis]

Roger: Who needs backbones, anyway? What a treat!

[tony gallucci]

excellent work Roger, and thanks for taking this on!

[Kevin Z]

Great Job Roger! I can't wait for to delve into all of these posts.

As always, if you need a spineless fix any day of the month head over to my invertebrate blog, The Other 95%!

[andrea]

Thanks for all your hard work pulling these together! I'm looking forward to cruising pages soon as I'm on holiday.

And far? I'm 1280 km from the coast! But when I miss sea life, I just go outside and start flipping rocks. We had ocean invertebrates here some 300 MYA...

[budak]

thanks Roger!

I have also updated the Peanut Worm entry with info and links on its culinary aspects.