Daddy of all specimens is in the air at Sheffield

This county boasts a good range of national and international authorities on species and groups, many of which most Yorkshire people have never even heard of.

The natural history curator at Sheffield’s Weston Park Museum, Paul Richards, is a case in point. He is a national expert on a group, mostly overlooked, which are cousins of the spiders.

These arachnids are the Harvestmen or Opiliones and are known to all as Daddy Long-legs.

They are harmless although their long legs don’t appeal to the arachnophobes amongst us.

To get to grips with the Harvestmen, Paul is running a day-school next Saturday. “They are a good group for a beginner to get to grips with,” he says.

“There are only 27 British ones to learn to recognise and they have unique crowns, or horns or three pronged forks, which make them easy to recognise.”

Paul set about recording all the British species and has produced a guide for the Field Studies Council.

Most people know Harvestmen, because they are seen around gardens, sitting on walls, or falling from pruned shrubs, and even in the early autumn, scuttling across the living room floor.

Paul is keen for people to start identifying them and to pass on the records to him. He claims that people are even quite fond of them; including people who do not like spiders.

In fact, Paul himself is not at all keen on spiders.

Since this an under-recorded group it is quite easy to make new and even significant discoveries.

An example was from a few years ago when Paul was playing with his daughter in the garden and noticed a spotty harvestman with white knees. It was the Red Harvestmen (Opilio canestrinii) which had only been recorded once before in Britain (in Essex).

 After a bit of survey work around Sheffield and Rotherham, he found another five sites.

This one particularly likes tall overgrown privet hedges and can be a real whopper with legs up to 10cm across.

Paul suggests if you do pick a harvestman, try to gather the legs up over its head. Otherwise they have evolved a clever escape mechanism. They leave a leg behind.

Another amazing discovery came last year when Paul was putting the final touches to the field guide,

He was busy concreting a garden wall at his home in Crookes in Sheffield when he spotted another Harvestman.

Holding on to the beast as he finished concreting one-handed, he noticed the white, dagger-like spines on its mouthparts and became quite excited.

Some research and translating of Dutch and German keys later, he found that what he had caught was a new discovery, the Pine Harvestman (Platybunus pinosus), new to Britain.

Currently the best place to look for Harvestmen is in Britain is Sheffield. In fact, it’s in Paul Richard’s back garden in Crookes.

Professor Ian D. Rotherham is a researcher, writer and broadcaster on wildlife and environmental issues

Where to learn about Big Daddy

Paul Richards is running a one-day identification day-school at Weston Park Museum, Sheffield, next Saturday, September 17.

To book on the day-school please telephone Paul on 0114 278 2649 The course will demonstrate how straightforward these animals are to identify and will present an introduction to their ecology and behaviour.

Museum specimens will be available for study, including and very excitingly, a species so far known in Britain only in Sheffield.

www.invertebrate-images.co.uk Spider recording scheme website: http://srs.britishspiders.org.uk/