Everyone was getting very excited about Trevor's spiders, including Trevor who took the trouble to put some under his microscope to take these pictures - which are at x20 magnification.
We were all thinking that they were some sport of rare species which had invaded Ardnamurchan on the wheels of one of Trevor's international-travelling-camper's cars or were in the Italian slates he used to roof his new house, but....
....the verdict of those who know seems to be that they are the young of the common garden spider, and that they would disperse into the local area once they had moulted and grown a little bigger.
The Diary had already identified it as
Araneus marmoreus var. pyramidatus, definitely something from the tombs of the pharaohs - see
this site - and very rare in Scotland.
Never mind - it provided a few moment's excitement on what has otherwise been a rather wet day.
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