Skye - And the 300th falls

Spent this morning wandering the woods instead of working (my boss is cool with flexi-hours... honest...) and found a couple of lifers in the process. First was the rather swanky looking moss Dicranium rufescens hiding in a clod of liverwort that I peeled off an earthen bank (Calypogeia fissa once again), followed by this Shrek-coloured stunner which turned out to be Peltigera leucophlebia. Excellent, that's one you won't see down in the south! 

Network of veins on the underside differentiate this from the similar P.britannica

Turning rocks and boulders is a great passion of mine. Today I added the flatworm Microplana terrestris, the Worm Slug Boettgerilla pallens, my first Geophilus insculptus of the year (which is the second record of this centipede from Skye following the one I found last year!) and a female millipede which, after a check of its naughty bits, keyed through to Ophyiulus pilosus. 

Female Ophyiulus pilosus - the intact version

Flashing her naughty parts for the camera

New plants included Tormentil, Square-stemmed St John's-wort and this lovely wee Pignut

Useful if I get peckish later in the summer

My revised totals are as follows (categories as per the PSL Website) :

Algae 8

Lichens 43 (inc 9 lifers)

Fungi 24 (inc 3 lifers)

Bryophytes 36 (inc 12 lifers)

Vascular Plants 74

Cnidarians 2

Molluscs 23 (inc 4 lifers)

Bryozoans 2

Annelids 5 (inc 4 lifers)

Platyhelminths 3 (inc 1 lifer)

Arachnids 2 (need to pull me finger out!)

Myriapods 9 (inc 1 lifer)

Crustaceans 8

Springtails 1

Orthopteroids 1

Coleoptera 6 (inc 2 lifers)

Diptera 1 (inc 1 lifer)

Moths 5

Fish 2

Birds 47

Mammals 4

Hoping for a bit of action regards flies, bees, bugs, beetles, spiders etc before too much longer. Just waiting, waiting, waiting for Spring to arrive!

All of which adds up to 306 species in NG3963 this year.