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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Matt Prince" data-source="post: 2036444" data-attributes="member: 52862">As of close of play on the 31st December 2010, the total number of species I recorded in Devon in a single year was 1643 species.202 Birds22 Mammals8 Reptiles and Amphibians20 Species of fishTotalling to 252 Vertebrates40 Butterflies281 Species of Moth27 Dragonflifies10 Grasshoppers39 Beetles6 Shieldbugs17 Hoverflies40 Miscellaneous InsectsThats 460 Species of Insect27 Spiders4 Miscellaneous Terrestrial Invertebrates45 Marine InvertebratesTotal 536 Species of InvertebratTotal Fauna 788 SpeciesFlowers 505 species (all native or naturalised, with the majority native)Fungi 236 SpeciesMosses, Lichens, Liverworts, Algae and Slimemoulds 95Seaweed and Spponges 21‘Flora’ Total 855As I speak there is still much unidentified, so if I get time to revisit the total may yet be higher. In terms of how this panned out versus what I expected, or what might have been acheived:-With the birds I hoped to see 200 species and just about squeaked it in the end, it was a good year for Devon birds, with many of the more focussed county listers exceeding my paltry 202 year total in May and I think Mark Bailey ended comfortably past the 230 mark. So more than 200 is achievable.. but its hard work when you're doing everything else, especially when the flowers and insects are at their zenith.The mammals were a little disappointing, when you see what the like of John Farnboro can achieve in a year, I don't think a paltry 22 (including one primate!) is doing the county justice. I failed totally to connect with Otter despite them being seen regularly on the Axe earlier, and I missed hedgehog. The only cetacean recorded was common porpoise. If it wasn't for the census work with the bat group my total would be even poorer. I've only ever seen 28 species of mammal in Devon, so personally this isn't so bad a total, however with more than 50 species possible in the County....The reptiles and amphibians was never going to be a big list with a maximum of 10 'official' possible, we never did manage to catch up with sand lizard or great crested newt.Fish could be a lot higher than the 20 recorded. I'm useless at the freshwater stuff and didn't do enough snorkeling or diving this year, so the totals largely down to rockpooling at Wembury and a few things from the Bioblitz. Sadly no elasmobranchs, which is a shame, lesser spotted catshark wherefore art thow!.40 species of butterfly and 27 species of dragonfly are both pretty good, could have got 2 more on each if I'd connected with clouded yellow, white letter hairstreak, ruddy darter and lesser emperor, but with all else that's going on I'm pretty chuffed with those totals. The moths at 281 were shy of the 300 I was hoping for but still very good considering that we don't actually own a trap. We only made this total by constantly pestering experts on as many organised moth nights as we could squeeze in. For comparison close to 600 species were recorded in 2009 in Devon (but not by a single observer). Grasshoppers on the other hand, totally fluffed that all round, 10 species is a paltry total, should have got 15 or more, with more than 20 possible.Beetles...ah beetles, I've really enjoyed trying to grips with the odd ground beetle that's crossed my path, frustrating as it has been, but lets face it 39 species is an absolute pittance. I don't know how many species occur in the county, but its probably a significant chunk of the 4000 or so that occur in this country. Thats right 4000, I have recorded less than 1 % of that total. Part of the problem is that most of the beetles aren't big and flashy and easy to see, and its very specialised subject that's hard for a newbie to get into. Sheildbugs were good fun, I think just shy of 30 species are possibe in Devon, so the total of 6 isn't great, but I suspect more targeted sweeping of suitable habitat would have netted us more. We where always chuffed when we found a sheildbug as these are an easy group for a beginner to get to grips with, as there is a decent guide.Talking of the appropriate guide, I got hold of the Stubbs hoverfly guide part way through the year, it was an old edition which I upgraded towards the end of the season when I found out it had changed so rapidly. More than 17 species can easily be recorded by a hoverfly expert in a single day at a single site, and the devon list must be in excess of 120 species, so this is a low total.  Some are easy to identify but many are quite challenging and a lot easier to identify if you kill them, something I wasn't prepared to do for something as trivial as this list. In any case I hope to record a lot more species this year.The miscellaneous insects is a misleading one, as a woodlouse or two has crept in there. Many interesting families, we just scratched the surface here. The marine invertebrate tally probably isn't bad, considering that most of this was from rock pool rambling rather than diving. I've no idea what a decent target to aim for is here, but you'd probably need to go some to beat 45 without getting more than your feet wet.A bit of digging on the plants of Devon would indicate well in excess of 1000 native and naturalised species on offer, so 505 is a lot less than half the total, but I'm fairly happy as I was, and still am, a total novice. Nicola was much more advanced and can get to grips with most of the higher plants, but even she found some of the plants - sedges and rushs - were a steep learning curve, and to be honest grasses and aquatics, we barely touched upon. So again room for improvement.The mushroom tally of 236 is something I' fairly happy with. I'm not sure how many species there are in Devon but its certainly well in excess of a 1000, probably twice that, so in some respects my contentment with the tally doesn't stack with the raw numbers. However a lot of the species are small, and require a microscope (or two) to identify and they are more ephemeral and harder to locate than flowers. As it was we missed very few of the Devon Fungi forays, and have been on many forays of our own, and it seems to have been quite a good year with some stunning arrays of macro fungi on some of the outings. The ragtag bag of mosses, lichens, liverworts, slimemoulds and aglae was expected to be quite a small list, but one and a half outings with Barbara Benfield was an absolute eye opener on the lichen front and counts for most of the 95 species on this composite list. Despite having the book, we failed to get to grips with the mosses. Not sure how many species of moss, lichen and liverwort there are in Devon, but as there are 850 species in the lichen book, and more than a 1000 species of moss and liverwort. So I'd be surprised if there aren't 1500 species of the lot possible in Devon.There are of course many things I didn't try and record, protozoa, bacteria and viruses for example! Invisible but essential elements of our natural world.So all in all - 1640 species, took a lot of effort, even if it is a small fraction of the 10000+ species present in the county and could probably be exceeded at any site if worked exhaustively enough. So 2000 species in one country is readily achievable in a year, probably a lot more.</blockquote>

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