Matley Bog is an ancient woodland

bog A bog or bogland is a wetland that accumulates peat as a deposit of dead plant materials often mosses, typically sphagnum moss. It is one of the four main types of wetlands. Other names for bogs include mire, mosses, quagmire, and muskeg; a ...

in the

New Forest The New Forest is one of the largest remaining tracts of unenclosed pasture land, heathland and forest in Southern England, covering southwest Hampshire and southeast Wiltshire. It was proclaimed a royal forest by William the Conqueror, featu ...

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...

, England.

Geography

It is a sphagnum

quaking bog A bog or bogland is a wetland that accumulates peat as a deposit of dead plant materials often mosses, typically sphagnum moss. It is one of the four main types of wetlands. Other names for bogs include mire, mosses, quagmire, and muskeg; ...

with adjacent heather heathland. The stream that runs axially through the bog drains at its eastern end into the infant

Beaulieu River The Beaulieu River ( ), formerly known as the River Exe, is a small river draining much of the central New Forest in Hampshire, southern England. The river has many small upper branches and its farthest source is from its -long tidal estuary. ...

Biodiversity

It is notable for the presence of the rare

ant Ants are eusocial insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from vespoid wasp ancestors in the Cretaceous period. More than 13,800 of an estimated total of 22 ...

'' Formica candida'', sometimes called the shining bog ant, which was discovered there in the early 20th century by

Horace Donisthorpe Horace St. John Kelly Donisthorpe (17 March 1870 – 22 April 1951) was an eccentric United Kingdom, British myrmecologist and coleopterist, memorable in part for his enthusiastic championing of the renaming of the genus ''Lasius'' after him as ...

. The wetter areas contain the rare and diminutive bog orchid, ''Hammarbya paludosa''. It is also home to a large population of

raft spider The raft spider, scientific name ''Dolomedes fimbriatus'', is a large semi-aquatic spider of the family Pisauridae found throughout north-western and central Europe. It is one of only two species of the genus ''Dolomedes'' found in Europe, the ot ...

s as well as the crab spider ''

Thomisus onustus ''Thomisus onustus'' is a crab spider belonging to the genus '' Thomisus''. These spiders are found across Europe, North Africa, and parts of the Middle East and Asia. ''T. onustus'' reside in flowers in lowland vegetation. Females are distinguis ...

''.

References

Bogs of England New Forest {{Hampshire-geo-stub