Selenochlamys ysbryda

Way too many things stopping me from posting at the moment, from my computer dying completely (thankfully it turned out that I only needed to reset the bios to repair it) to major, if welcome, distractions. I'm sure that things will settle down eventually, but for now I'm anticipating ants taking a back seat. I know: it truly is a scary thing to consider.

Back in July I reported on a species new to science from the UK, the ghost slug Selenochlamys ysbryda.

One of my new colleagues saw something last year that he claimed to be a ghost slug right outside of our office building in Talgarth, but wasn't able to get Cardiff Museum to verify it without a photograph. Last week, having given up hope of finding another one, he found it again in the same spot. Again, no one could find a camera, so I picked it up, took it home and now have a pet slug.

So here it is! The photograph below was confirmed by Ben Rowson at Cardiff Museum as S. ysbryda, who also stated that Talgarth is the furthest north that this species has been found (though Brecon comes a close second). The other verified records are from Caerphilly, Cardiff, Gorseinon and Newport, so it's evidently not been widely found yet. I shall be looking out for it in my garden in Bronllys, about two miles further north.


I shall be taking this specimen, and any others that I find, to Cardiff Museum, to assist with their research on the species. Until then it'll be feeding on worms from my garden.

New species

I honestly can't remember the last time a new species of invertebrate was found in the UK (excluding bacteria from the definition). That makes it quite an event when something as significant as a slug is found, sort of the British equivalent of the Vu Quang ox.

The slug was described by specialists at the National Museum of Wales and Cardiff University, who named it Selenochlamys ysbryda, after ysbryd, the Welsh word for ghost. The beast is subterranean, lacking pigmentation and blind. It spends its time eating earthworms.

Sadly though, S. ysbryda is probably not native to the UK, as its nearest relatives live in the mountains of eastern Europe, Georgia and eastern Turkey. Because it may have invaded British shores, the National Museum of Wales are seeking any additional records, to see how widespread it is, and have provided an identification guide.

More information can be found at the National Museum of Wales website and BBC News.

UK ant collections

The other day I had a request from Professor James K. Wetterer at Florida Atlantic University. He had seen the invasive species listed as present in The Gambia and wanted further details of those and others that I had collected.

This lead to two surprises. The first was that someone was paying attention and cared what I get up to. The second was the large number of invasive ants I have collected, despite few collection forays outside of the UK. It has, however, made me wonder if it's worth highlighting the other species that I have in my collection or have records for, in case they are of use to anyone.

I've decided to kick this off with the shortest and simplest list: the paltry fauna of the UK (I'm going to upset some British myrmecologists with this description, but it doesn't make it any less true). A complete list of the 67 native and regularly recorded introduced ants can be found in the checklist available on the BWARS website. The few species that I have in my collection are listed below.

Formicidae
     Formica
          cunicularia
          fusca
          lemani
          lugubris
          picea ¹
          rufa
     Lasius
          brunneus
          flavus
          fuliginosus
          niger
          platythorax
          psammophilus
          umbratus
Myrmicinae
     Formicoxenus
          nitidulus ²
     Leptothorax
          acervorum
     Myrmecina
          graminicola
     Myrmica
          lobicornis
          rubra
          ruginodis
          sabuleti
          scabrinodis
          schencki
          sulcinodis
     Technomyrmex
          albipes ³
     Temnothorax
          nylanderi
     Tetramorium
          caespitum

---

¹ Alate queen collected in Yorkshire. Despite a lot of searching no colonies have been located in the area.
² Two males collected by David Baldock.
³ Present only as a rare introduction, these specimens from the Eden Project.