Predestined to Damnation

It was yet another glorious though bitterly cold day out there today. I took myself down to the shore in search of a particular species of spider, one which I'd tried and failed to find a few weeks back. The tide was out and I headed down the beach to where a jumble of fair sized boulders lay part embedded in the gritty sand. They all had seaweed hanging from them, for these rocks are completely submerged at high tide. Not the most obvious spot to go searching for spiders, I hear you say. Well yeah, ordinarily you'd be right, but there's one species that dwells in precisely this type of habitat and I was determined to find it this time around.

The upper image seems to show a bit of silk web, I've never seen that before with this species

Bingo! This is Halorates reprobus, a liny which is exclusively found on the shore, typically in the zone inundated with seawater at high tide. It's a niche that is also exploited by various mites, springtails, beetles and a centipede, all of which are air-breathing animals. During high tide, small air pockets form where the underside of these rocks meet the coarse, gritty sediment. Clearly these suffice for the air-breathing inverts that live here. I collected four individuals from beneath one rock with the expectation of securing both sexes. Back indoors I was a tad surprised to discover that they were all adult females. Where were the males??

It's a very distinctively-shaped epigyne

The Spider Recording Scheme page suggests that both sexes are adult throughout the year, so it's a mystery to me why there were no males amongst the specimens I collected. Maybe they keep seperate outside of the mating season? It makes no difference, the epigynes are enough to clinch a definitive ID, it's just a bit weird is all. 

I don't know what this spider did to deserve being called a reprobate, but it makes me smile anyway. In my mind's eye I imagine them kicking in doors, smashing up bars, dancing drunkenly through the streets of a night, running away from the police and pissing through letterboxes. Reminds me of my misspent youth in London, I think I'd get along with this type of spider very well. According to Calvinism, a reprobate is "a sinner who is not of the elect and is predestined to damnation". I'm not convinced that concept applies to non-humans (or actually, that it applies at all!) but again, completely seems my kind of person/spider.

The Spider Recording Scheme's page for Halorates reprobus is here and there are a couple of other pages about it here and here. If you have access to some shoreline/saltmarsh, maybe have a look for your own reprobate, best of luck!