That's the message the Biodiversity team at sutton passed on at their most recent course - on spiders.
Lead by Dave Warburton with Tom Thomas from the British Naturalist Society. The training day was aimed at beginners to try and edge them into the world of spiders, dealing with the different groups and how to identify them.
The day started with a brief introduction to spiders, of which there are around 600+ species in the UK. The group then got to terms with learning different groups of spiders, including the Mygalamorphs (there is only 1 UK species: the purse-web spider) and the Araneomorphs. The Araneomorphs include the hunting spiders (wolf spiders, jumping spiders, spitting spiders), the ambushing spiders (crab spiders), and the web weaving spiders (orb weavers, cobweb spiders). Each of these groups are distinguished by their special method of capturing prey, from the hunters who actively search and attack prey, to the web weaving spiders who spin a silk web to entrap any insect that may fly by.
At the end of the day everyone had managed to get to grips with several different groups of spider and also the key characteristics to identify spiders. The training day gave a real insight into the diverse and complex world of spiders, and hopefully encouraged the group to get out there and practice their identification skills!
If you’re interested in attending any of the courses in the future, a full list of events can be found http://suttonnature.wordpress.com/. Or come along to ‘Grasses for Beginners’ on Saturday 21st June, our next event at Sutton Ecology.