Hi,

I'm looking for more information on the spider Porhomma rosenhaueri which is recorded from only two locations in the UK, Lesser Garth and Ogof y Ci.

http://srs.britishspiders.org.uk/portal.php/p/Summary/s/Porrhomma+rosenhaueri

The Spider Recording Scheme has as their main reference for this species the book:
Chapman, P (1993), Caves and Cave Life
But this is ?100 odd on Amazon (I wonder if the BCRA library might have it?)

I will obviously be contacting relevant people - G. Proudlove and the BCRA bio sig, the people at the British Arachnological Society and potentially P. Smithers and T. Thompson etc

But before I do I wondered if there was anyone else who may have any information, principally, is the species still there, are the caves still there (I believe Lesser Garth is threatened by quarrying?), what is access like and does anyone have any information on ecology or behaviour of this trogolodite species?

Cheers
Will

I suggest you search the British Caving Library ( http://caving-library.org.uk/catalogue/catalogue.shtml ) for Lesser Garth - when you will find a paper in Cave & Karst Science from 2010 by Jules Carter et al. (summary at http://bcra.org.uk/pub/candks/summary/j109s.pdf ).

A search of the same catalogue suggests the BCL also have a copy of Caves & Cave Life.

It would be worth dropping the librarian an email.

Lesser Garth is still there - no imminent threat as far as I know. I'm pretty sure the spiders are still there too. I was in Lesser Garth with Julian Carter a couple of years ago and he was looking for, and found them while we were there. Tiny little white things, I recall.

I can offer:

Chapman, P (1993), Caves and Cave Life  ?30.00 + postage.

There is another copy on fleabay for about this price.

Abzolutely fantastic how quickly information can be had on this forum! Thanks a lot folks this is great.

Rich, do you mind if I message you about buying the book once my student loan comes in? (unless i can persuade the club librarian to buy it...)

You should certainly try to beg, borrow, or buy, a copy of Caves & Cave Life: it is engaging on far more fronts than just the biological. It has a black and white drawing of this " about 2mm long, straw-coloured spider" by Brin Edwards, but won't, however, tell you much more about P.rosenhaueri that you don't already know, except, perhaps, that it was initially classified as a subspecies of P.convexum, which is common in Yorkshire and Mendip, as well as occurring in Derbyshire and the Forest of Dean (but not just in caves).
To add a pedantic correction to the C&KS article and its summary, this spider was first found outside the European mainland in 1894 in a cave at Michaelstown, Co.Cork, and it has also been recorded in Fisherstreet Pot, Co.Clare - Ireland is in the British Isles, but not the United Kingdom...
You should also be aware that both Ogof-y-Ci and Lesser Garth Caves are within SSSIs. 
You can contact Julian Carter via  http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/curatorial/biosyb/conservation/