Hi all, just wondering how many of you besides me get exciting and delighted when you find a species you've never seen before? For me it makes my day, sometimes my week. I love seeing something for the first time, and adding to my knowledge. Even just seeing something in Spring that I haven't seen for a year can do this to me.
Last weekend I found two species at once. I was chasing what turned out to be a Roesel's Bush Cricket, when a Long Winged Conehead (another sort of cricket) landed on my arm. I got so excited with my capture that I rushed home with it to confirm my identification, then realsied that the Roesel's was much rarer, and had to rush back to the site to catch a Roesel's as well. I was like a kiddie given a surprise bag of sweets. Turned out to be the third ever record for Monmouthshire.
Then I had to rush around showing everyone what I had found
It's even better when the thing is genuinely new, but not many of us get to do that. I've added numerous species to the lists for Wales, and dozens of new county records, and they are great. Once, I almost found a new species to science, but then some swine found an intermediate between it and a continental species, and it got downgraded to 'new to the UK'. I still grinned for months.
It is funny how it happens too. One of the rarest spiders I ever caught was in a quick search in a woodland whilst my wife had a nap to shake off a headache. Another was directly outside the car where I parked it. A mate of mine has the only record of the false widow, Steatoda nobilis from Wales, from a sea-front toilet. Specifically, in the ladies'. Don't ask me how he found it.
My almost new to science was a harvestman, of course. Going through some old specimens, I pcicked up a small black harvestman, and thought "Oh I know what this is. Only one black harvestman species in the UK, and its very common. No need to check it. Oh well, I've never actually looked at one of these under a microscope. I'll have a look, it might be interesting. Hey! Wait a minute, this is different..."
I was so close to throwing it away! My 15 minutes of fame was an interview on Radio 4 as a result, but they mostly thought it was funny because you have to look at the male penis for a definitive identification...
Anyway, does anyone else recognise these symptoms, on whatever scale, or am I just being weird again?
Last weekend I found two species at once. I was chasing what turned out to be a Roesel's Bush Cricket, when a Long Winged Conehead (another sort of cricket) landed on my arm. I got so excited with my capture that I rushed home with it to confirm my identification, then realsied that the Roesel's was much rarer, and had to rush back to the site to catch a Roesel's as well. I was like a kiddie given a surprise bag of sweets. Turned out to be the third ever record for Monmouthshire.
Then I had to rush around showing everyone what I had found
It's even better when the thing is genuinely new, but not many of us get to do that. I've added numerous species to the lists for Wales, and dozens of new county records, and they are great. Once, I almost found a new species to science, but then some swine found an intermediate between it and a continental species, and it got downgraded to 'new to the UK'. I still grinned for months.
It is funny how it happens too. One of the rarest spiders I ever caught was in a quick search in a woodland whilst my wife had a nap to shake off a headache. Another was directly outside the car where I parked it. A mate of mine has the only record of the false widow, Steatoda nobilis from Wales, from a sea-front toilet. Specifically, in the ladies'. Don't ask me how he found it.
My almost new to science was a harvestman, of course. Going through some old specimens, I pcicked up a small black harvestman, and thought "Oh I know what this is. Only one black harvestman species in the UK, and its very common. No need to check it. Oh well, I've never actually looked at one of these under a microscope. I'll have a look, it might be interesting. Hey! Wait a minute, this is different..."
I was so close to throwing it away! My 15 minutes of fame was an interview on Radio 4 as a result, but they mostly thought it was funny because you have to look at the male penis for a definitive identification...
Anyway, does anyone else recognise these symptoms, on whatever scale, or am I just being weird again?
