Kullaberg - Southern Sweden.

[Phalagorn]

Kullaberg 17 June 2006

A little trip at Kullaberg with my friend Freddy, It dosn´t look so exotic but it´s was fun, the place Kullaberg it´s only 30 minutes away from me. We had an sunny and beautiful weather, but in the evening it became little cloudy and cold. Here are som pictures of various invertebrates on our 6 hour long walking in this beutifull Swedish nature.

Agelenidae sp.

Araniella cucurbitina

Atypus affinis
These are the only mygalomorph spider that lives in Sweden.

Square 1. = Old well-knowned locality of Atypus affinis I´l got fram an friend of mine.
Square 2. = New locality we found this day, I´l haved earlier search here without results.

The areas are close to each other, but the localities only lies on the top of each rocks on small limited areas that makes some form of microhabitat.

Square 1. - Earlier well-knowned locality.

Square. - New locality.

Here´s an typical burrow - a tube made of net. These tubes raised about 4-5 cm abowe the ground and been used to feel vibarations when an insect walking over it, When the spider that lives under the ground feels the vibarations it runs up above the ground and strikes with it´s powerfull fangs through the net and pull the prey into it´s burrow.

After 20 minutes of digging we got the whole tube, the tube was about 20 cm long.

Atypus affinis. Reminds a little bit of "Funnel webs"

Jumping spider, unknown species.

We also found a moth - Hemaris fuciformis. We saw about 10 of them. They looks and moves just like kolobris and was very beutifull. Unfortunately the picture been blurry...

The locality of the moths.

Butterfly - Parage aegeria tircis

Caterpillar - Philudoria potatoria

Green tiger beetle - Cicindela campestris

Cetonia aurata

Kullaberg 18 June 2006

I was at Kullaberg again with my friend Freddy. Even better weather this day, the sun was shining!!
This time we were walking in 8 and a half hour, and we saw lots of fun.

On the way from Mölle to Kullaberg.

Some pictures of forest-coverd rocky precipice.

This day we found 2 whole new localities of Atypus affinis, that lies side by the other rocks that we earlier found them. The spiders lives isolated and only on the top of these rocks, the areas are about 10-15 square meters. The rocks stands in the sun from morning to evening which create an perfect heating of the whole rocky/mountain area. A perfect place for these spiders to enjoy there living. Between these four rocks theres small lush verdure valleys that stands in the shadow, but here there arn´t any Atypus affinis course it´s to cool for them to live.

We decided to do an inventory of this area. But this is an very inaccessible ground and hard to climb up to reach this localities.
(But I´l got an certificate of educations in mountin-climbing, so there were no problems for me)
While on top of these rocks we started to search around every small rocks, stones, inside cracks...

The Area with the four localities, numbered 1-4 from north to south, thereafter quantity of burrows:

Local 1. 9 st
Local 2. 2 st
Local 3. 37 st
Local 4. 6 st

TOTAL: 54 st

We also found some nice beetles, here they are...

Green tiger beetle - Cicindela campestris

Melanophila cyanea

Pyrochroa coccinea

Small Rhino beetle - Platypus cylindrus

Some other insects...

Green Katydid, uknown species.

Water scorpion - Nepa cinerea

Butterfly - Lysandra coridon

Catepillar - Lasiocampa trifolii

And some amfibians and reptiles we also saw...

Smooth Newt - Triturus vulgaris

Grass Snake - Natrix natrix

Time to go home... Here you can see Kullaberg in the horizon.

Hope you all like my little fild trip and my photos... Sorry for my lousy english..

 

[Phalagorn]

Here´s some old pictures from Kullaberg during the summer 2005.
An beautifull day with my friends that I´l never forget. This little field trip includes:
Me/Phalagorn, Björn/Bearo, Martin/Aftershock (from this forum)
And a friend of mine named Tim - that was a driver that day

[1] Bearo, Me and Aftershock. [2] Bearo looking for animals by the cost.

[1] Atypus affinis Habitat - local 1. [2] Bearo and Tim looking for burrows around the stones.

[1] Tim, Aftershock and I digging. [2] Aftershock was tierd of all digging.

[1] Under a stone Aftershock found an Anguis fragilis. [2] A classic Atypus affinis tube.

[1-6] Atypus affinis - female.

[1-3] A walk by the rock called Åkersberget. [4] Area called Josefinelust.

[1] The caves in Josefinelust. [2] A shaft that drops about 3 meters down in the ground, This is the entrance to Trollhålet (gobblin burrow in english) next to the wall of the mountain. [3] Aftershock crawling about 5 meters through an claustrophobic entrance to the cave. [4] While in the cave you can climb in about 15 meters. Course of an rock avalanche it stopes here, before this cave was over 50 meters deep.

In the roof of this cave there was plenty of cave spiders.
[1-6] Cave spider - Meta menardi [1-3] Female. [4] Male. [5-6] Cocoon with slings.

[1] Beetle - Unknown species. [2-4] Cetonia aurata

[1-2] Potosia cuprea

[1-4] Green tiger beetle - Cicindela campestris [2] Mating.

[1] Catarpillar - Philudoria potatoria [2] Catarpillar - Zygaena filipendulae

[1-3] On a walk with my friend Freddy south of Kullaberg next to a swamp area called Fäladen.
[4-7] Fire-bellied toads - Bombina bombina [7] Warning colours at the underside (ventrally).

[1-2] We also found a pare of Grass snakes - Natrix natrix that were sunbathing on a stone in the middle of the pond.

 

[angus]

hello phalagorn..

very natural and beautiful view there..@_@..and also very good quality pics, i love the Pyrochroa coccinea the most, do this kind of bettles hard to keep??

btw, thx for your sharing~

 

[james41777]

Thanks a lot for sharing..
Beautiful views and pictures!!
:clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:

 

[tarcan]

Wow, great pictures, thanks for sharing!

 

[Kriegan]

Very nice trip you guys had there! Sounds like a lot of fun! I liked those rhino bettle pics a lot, and i would've taken the natrix home as a nice souvenir

 

[Crotalus]

and i would've taken the natrix home as a nice souvenir

That is verboten in Sweden

 

[Kriegan]

That is verboten in Sweden

How about the rhino beetles...are those illegal to keep in schweden too?

 

[Crotalus]

How about the rhino beetles...are those illegal to keep in schweden too?

Natrix ssp is not illegal to keep, its illegal to collect any native herps
The rhino beetle is as far as I know protected and illegal to collect but there is no restrictions to keep CB from another country. Same with the snakes.

 

[LongDucDong]

GREAT pics I must say!!!! I loved your little trip, thanks for sharing!!! I love the grass snakes, theyre really kinda neat in a strange way. Are they common around water?

Ive always wanted to get overseas to Sverige, looks like a nice place!

 

[Vys]

Nice report.

Regarding the photos, I especially liked the first picture of an A. affinis biting into the poking-stick(looks almost cartoonish), as well as the first couple of P. cylindrus shots, well-combined light and shadow.

 

[GQ.]

Exellent report Phalagorn. This is the type of post that makes me head out the door to find something, anything. Do the Atypis pull the prey right through the webbing? Is there a burrow entrance or is the tube sealed off completely?

 

[Crotalus]

Exellent report Phalagorn. This is the type of post that makes me head out the door to find something, anything. Do the Atypis pull the prey right through the webbing? Is there a burrow entrance or is the tube sealed off completely?

Yes they pull the prey straight through the silk tube.
The tube sticking up of the ground a few cm, the entrance is closed.

For some pictures on how the silk tubes look like:
http://www.minaxtarantulas.net/artiklar/atypus/atypus_e.html

 

[GQ.]

Thanks for the information Lelle. Thanks for the link too.

 

[Emanuele]

The Jumping Spiders should be a female Aelurillus sp.
Nice shot guys!
The Bombina is more like Bombina variegata than B. bombina...
Cheers
Ema

 

[Crotalus]

The Bombina is more like Bombina variegata than B. bombina...

We dont have variegata in Sweden

 

[RottweilExpress]

Insanely good pics Stefan. I kinda wish I could have gone with you on those trips. I've spent several summers on Kullaberg.

 

[Tarantula]

Nice pics.. I also want to visit Kullaberg someday. Last time we planned to do it it was raining for several days. But sitting inside drinking beer and talk spiders isnt bad either! lol

 

[Vanisher]

Wonderful pictures Phalagorn.:clap: We have to visit Kullaberg when i coming to see you
/Johan