Golden Jumper

About 150 years ago someone found Meloe mediterraneus somewhere near Southend.  This nocturnal, winter-active oil beetle has recently been rediscovered in Britain, so we decided to head to Wallasea, near Southend, on the million to one chance that we would find it there too.  Of course we did not.  But before it got dark I had a look at the saltmarsh and the sea wall.  It was a warm day, and there were plenty of  insects around.  Most of them were Sitona lineatus, a very common weevil, but some of them were not.  One of those was Rhinocyllus conicus, a bristly, pretty thistle-feeding weevil, basking on a fence post

In the saltmarsh, I set about grubbing under Sea Purslane, trying to find some saltmarsh spiders.  I was not expecting a tiny jumping spider with huge front legs like muscular orang-utan arms complete with a fringe of dangling hairs on the under side like tassels on a pair of Elvis trousers.

The Popeye arms are characteristic of the Golden Jumping Spider Bianor aurocinctus, a scarce species with its headquarters around the Thames Estuary.  So, while a damp dark hiding place under a small shrub in a saltmarsh might not be where I would expect to find a spider of dry, warm, open places, we were in the right area.

Another feature of this spider is the rear eyes set far back along the head and further apart than the front ones.  Whichever way you look at it, it is a charming little thing.  Hands up who thinks jumping spiders are cool.

The day of the Olinguito

South America is the bird continent.  During my two years in Ecuador I saw over 1100 species, including a dazzling array of hummingbirds in the cloud forests of the Andes, where I spent most of my time.  Mammals were much harder to come by, especially away from the Amazonian lowlands.  You could almost guarantee a Red-tailed Squirrel and several bats, but anything else was a good sighting and cause for excitement.  Steve and I had one such experience late one afternoon as the clouds closed in on the upper Tandayapa Valley.  We were walking along the road when we saw something in a tree.  It looked like a Kinkajou Potos flavus, a racoon-like mammal I had once seen at the Bird Lodge, but trailing behind the animal we were looking at now was a bushy tail unlike the sleek prehensile tail of a Kinkajou, which grasps branches and wraps around them as it moves through the canopy.  We took some grainy photos in the fading light, and Steve got a short bit of video.  Back at the lodge, the field guide allowed us to identify our mammal as an Olingo Bassaricyon gabii.

Soon after I returned to Britain, Roland Kays contacted me.  He said that he had seen my Olingo photos and that they were of an undescribed species that he and his colleagues were working on!  He asked whether he could use them to help with the paper they were preparing, which he hoped would be submitted by the end of 2006.  I excitedly said yes, but that was seven years ago and I heard nothing more about it until last week when this message from Roland arrived in my inbox:

  

Dear Mark 

A few years ago I contacted you about using your olingo photos as part of a scientific project we have about the genus and you said that would be fine.  In fact, you have the best photographs in the wild of what turns out to be a completely new species.  It took us longer than expected to pull all the parts of this story together, but it is now ready to hit the public via publication in a journal called ZooTaxa.  Kris Helgen from the Smithsonian is the lead author, and we expect (hope) there to be a fair amount of press associated with the discovery, which we hope will also raise the attention for the conservation needs of Andean cloud forest.  

So that is how my photos became the face of the Olinguito Bassaricyon neblina.  It certainly has received a fair amount of press.  Over the last two days I have seen my Olinguito looking out at me from most of the national newspapers, the television news websites, and dozens of blogs and Youtube videos.  My small part in this discovery is all down to luck, but it has been exciting to be involved in it.  And I need to make the most of it: when else will my photos be seen by millions of people?

Okapi weevil

The spectacular giraffe weevil of Madagascar Trachelophorus giraffa is often featured in wildlife documentaries.  We do not expect such bizarre and colourful species in the temperate zone, but although it does not have the fame of its larger relative, we do have our own shorter-necked but just as colourful version.  Apoderus coryli lives on Hazel Corylus avellanae.  It is bright red and black, just like its Malagasay cousin, but although its neck is long by normal standards it is not of giraffe proportions.  Perhaps we can liken it to an Okapi instead.

Like the giraffe weevil, Apoderus coryli is a leaf roller, making barrel-shape rolls from the leaves and laying its eggs inside them.  Although it is a widespread weevil, I have not seen it very often, so I was excited to find one on a Hazel in a copse on the reserve yesterday morning.

Today, another exotic insect got me running.  Some bright orange fluttered past and landed on Traveller's Joy Clematis vitalba in the hedge.  I quickly chased after it and once I had it in the binoculars I could see that it was a Jersey Tiger Euplagia quadripunctaria.  Now it was settled it had transformed from orange to zebra print, losing its colour but none of its visual impact.  This moth has been spreading out from its south Devon home, and it has been resident on the Isle of Wight since the 1990s.

The last of today's spectacular species may not appeal to everyone.  Cave spiders are huge, even bigger than the house spiders that seem to end up in baths more often than is good for them.  Keith took us to the old pump house out on the marshes where he lifted an inspection cover to reveal several enormous shiny, dark chocolate spiders.  Most of them were immature, but there were three big mammas that seemed to be adult, so we set about trying to get one on its back so we could see the relevant bits to identify it.  There are two British cave spiders, and they can only be separated by looking at the epigynes (females) or palps (males) of adults.  Our spider, when we got it flipped over, had the wide, narrow epigyne of Meta bourneti, which is much the rarer of the two.  This was another excellent natural history moment, combining the unexpected and spectacular with just a little frisson.

Many goosefoots are difficult to identify, but Oak-leaved Chenopodium glaucum is easy, and I like it almost for that alone.  It also has an attractive silver lining on the underside of the leaves (just visible in the photo above on the leaf below the tip), which adds to its appeal.  This plant is probably an ancient introduction like poppies and many of our other cornfield weeds.  It is uncommon, but I see it around the Thames Estuary quite often, and there is a good population here at Brading.

Shooting stars

Our visit to the Isle of Wight coincided with the Perseid meteor shower, and in a corner that was darker than my home town, but still probably too bright for most astronomers, we saw four meteors streak across the sky like fireworks.  Being out and looking up on a clear night reminded me that the night sky is one of the wonders of the world.  I could not do it justice with a camera, but I was happy to try with some closer stars.  The Starlet Sea-anemone Nematostella vectensis is tiny and does not produce trails across the sky, but it has an interesting story.  It had been living undiscovered in shallow coastal lagoons until 1935, when Thomas Alan Stephenson described it as a new species based on specimens from Bembridge on the Isle of Wight, which is where we found ourselves today, peering into shallow waters and looking for small white stars in the mud.  It was nice to find them here dotted over the soft surface of the saline pools almost eighty years after they were first noticed.  Since their discovery, these sea-anemones have become a favourite species for those studying developmental and evolutionary biology and other biological questions.

Dr Stephenson named his new anemone after its place of discovery, the island the Romans called Vectis.  It was subsequently found on the other side of the Atlantic, first along the east coast of North America, and then on the Pacific coast.  It has received a high level of protection in England because of fears for its saline lagoon habitat, but recent studies suggest that it is not native here.  Genetic analysis reveals that the English and Pacific populations are so similar to those on the eastern seaboard of America that they could not have been separated for long; hardly the pattern of variation you would expect if the anemones had been separated on both sides of the Atlantic for millennia.  The evidence suggests that Nematostella vectenis, despite being discovered and named here, is only a recent arrival.  The most likely explanation is that it has been accidentally transported as a stowaway on a boat.  Non-native status may rob the Starlet Sea-anemone of the high standing and protection it currently enjoys, but it remains a curiosity and a part of the history of our natural history.

Sea-anemones are best sought by day, but Glow-worms Lampyrus noctiluca are best enjoyed after dark.  I do not often see them in their bioluminescent glory, but we managed to find one on each night we went out on the reserve.  The first was in a wood, the second was along a path between the lagoons where we had heard Wood Crickets Nemobius sylvestris singing during the day.

Apart from the meteors and Glow-worm, our first night had not produced much; a Lesser Stag Beetle Dorcus parallelipideus was one of the few other things of note.

This evening was slightly more productive.   Before the sun went down I had a short walk from where we were staying to the allotments at Lake to look for Martin's Ramping-fumitory Fumaria reuteri.  I had seen this here over ten years ago, when an allotment holder let us in to examine the plants.  There was nobody around this time, but one of the plants had escaped onto the nearby road, allowing close enough examination to confirm its identity.

Like the sea-anemone, this species was once thought of as a rare native, but opinion now considers it a recent introduction.  Whatever its status, there is no doubting that it has been turning up in new places.  The population in the allotments at Lake was for a long time thought to be the only one in Britain, but plants have recently appeared at scattered sites from Kintyre to Kent.

Currant affairs

I had been out on my bike for much of the day and I was hot and hungry when I arrived home.  The red currants in the garden were looking bright and deliciously tempting on a summer afternoon, so I started stripping berries and found them cooling and refreshing.  I was so taken with them that my brain ignored the clearwing moth that I saw as reached down to take another handful.  The moth flew off, and it was a second after it had gone before I realised what had just happened: I had seen a clearwing.  Now it had gone.  Oops.  It was on a currant so I had a good idea what it was likely to be, and after grabbing net, camera, and the appropriate pheromone from the freezer I was standing back in the garden, this time concentrating on moths.  It did not take long for it to come back, buzzing around the same bush and settling on the sunny part of the wall behind it.  It was indeed a Currant Clearwing Synanthedon tipuliformis, a new moth for me.  Happy that I had recovered what could have been an embarrassing almost-seen, I celebrated with few more currants.

Jacqui arrived back about twenty minutes later, so we got the pheromones out again, and the moth appeared again very quickly, this time buzzing about the lure excitedly.  I took the lure down and the clearwing posed nicely on a leaf before disappearing as clearwings so adeptly do.

Snake in the grass

It was time for the annual Viper's-grass monitoring, so Andy and I headed to Dorset for a couple of days.  If you are not familiar with British plants, the name Viper's-grass is misleading: Scorzonera humilis has nothing to do with snakes and it is not a grass.  It is a relative of dandelions and is one of our rarest plants, restricted to two sites in Dorset and two in Wales.  Next year it will celebrate its centenary as a British plant.  It was discovered here in 1914 by Noel Sandwith when he was only twelve.  A couple of years later he was given a day off school to show it to G C Druce, the doyen of British botany and one of the most fanatical plant listers of all time.

Before we continued the count the next morning, Rob, our reptile licensee, took us out to survey some real vipers on the heath.  The sun was rarely showing itself, and despite it being almost the end of May, the weather was still stuck at the end of January.  There were no reptiles basking on the track sides, but under the tins we found a couple of baby Slow-worms Anguis fragilis.

Every time Rob turned over a tin I was hoping to see my first Smooth Snake Coronella austriaca.  Eventually my hopes were fulfilled as the lid was lifted on a large male, which Rob estimated was about fifteen years old.

We could see that it was indeed smooth, its scales lacking the keel down the middle that you find on other snakes.  There were no more snakes on the heath, but around the farm there were more Slow-worms and a fine female Adder Vipera berus.

The Smooth Snake, which feeds mostly on other reptiles, including smaller Smooth Snakes, is at home on the heath, but Adders are rarely found there.  This is perhaps because there are not enough small mammals for them to eat.  We found another Adder in a nearby large garden, as well as a Grass Snake and more Slow-worms.  Having seen all the British snakes within an hour, we returned to the Viper's-grass field for more counting.

The cold weather made it hard to find insects, but Andy had a good find under some dung, with the very shiny scarab Trypocopris pyrenaeus.  The surface of this beetle is smooth and almost mirror-like, more so than in any of our other large dung beetles.

To be certain of the identification you can flip the beetle over and look at the under side of the abdomen, which has small pits and hairs at the side, but is smooth in the middle.  The slightly less shiny Trypocopris vernalis has hairs and pits all across the abdomen.

Kleidocerys ericae, a bug that lives on heather, was about, but we did not find many other insects, so it was left to a plant to provide us with another highlight.  Pale Dog-violet Viola lactea is a scarce species of heathlands in the south-west, but it is sporadic in its appearance.  It can remain dormant under gorse for years, waiting to flower when the spiky canopy above it is removed.  Last year I saw it respond to a fire on Anglesey that had taken out large areas of gorse.  Here at Stoborough it usually appears where gorse is cut back, and we found a few plants by the track in an open area.

By the time I get out to the heaths, the flowers are usually fading or gone, but after the slow start to spring, there were several in full bloom for us to admire this year.

After dark II: In praise of pine

At the reserve this afternoon I noticed a lot of ant beetles Thanasimus formicarius running about on some pine logs.  I thought this should mean that i) there are lots of deadwood beetles about, and ii) tonight would be the time to look for them because the hot day would have made them active.

The ant beetles were still out when I returned after dark.  It is getting tiresome to mention Nalassus laevioctostriatus, but as usual it was everywhere.  The big pine logs also had two big weevils: Hylobius abietis and Pissodes pini.  The larger of the two, Hylobius abietis, is a common pest in conifer plantations.  Pissodes pini is a widespread but local weevil, commoner further north.  I have seen it in native pine woods in Scotland, but this is the first I have found in England.  Pine is often demonised in England.  In Scotland it is romanticised in the Forest of Caledon, the defining component of native pinewood, to be cherished and protected.  In England it is seen as an invader and a nuisance on heaths and in broad-leaved woodland.  Is this right?  Scots Pine Pinus sylvestris was a native tree throughout Britain until the climate warmed after the last ice age and it retreated north.  How long did it persist in the south?  It cannot have been common, but if you look at the records favourably, it is possible that it held on in England and Wales until only a few hundred years ago, its extinction being hastened by forest clearance.  This would give it the same status as beaver, wolf, or lynx, which are considered lost natives whose return would be welcomed by some and called a conservation success after millions of pounds had been spent on making it happen.  As far as I can see, the only difference between those species and Scots Pine is that Scots Pine has recolonised its former range for free, and it has been so successful that it needs to be controlled (and that last part could apply to any of the animals if they were brought back).  We need to keep controlling pine, but I do not think we should seek to extirpate it or always see it as a non-native bad thing, and we should celebrate the many animals and fungi that it brings with it.

The next target was birch.  No deadwood beetles here, but there were lots of Aradus depressus, a weird looking and very flat bug.

The highlight of the night was on a tall, standing, dead Beech.  This is a splendid tree, with a hollow base and large Ganoderma bracket fungi growing inside and out.  It looks as though it should be home to rare deadwood beetles, and a sprite or two, and tonight I found one on it (a beetle, not a sprite).   Any click beetle with black elytra and red pronotum is going to be something good, and this one turned out to be Ischnodes sanguinicollis, a very scarce insect found in rotting wood of various trees.

Although most people see the reserve as a heathland site, its deadwood fauna is just as important, perhaps even more so, and we must not neglect it.

Purple

Several people had told me that the display of Pasque Flowers Pulsatilla vulgaris at Therfield Heath this year was one of the best they had ever seen.  So on a sunny day Col and I went over after work to check out the purple.  We were a little late in the season, but it was a beautiful evening, and there were thousands of flowers on the side of the hill, filtering the evening sun through their sepals.

Looking east, the hill was dotted with purple flowers, each with a blaze of yellow stamens at its centre.

To the west, against the light, there was a haze of delicate mauve and white, as the hairs on the leaves and stalks gave each plant a halo.

Pasque Flowers are such special things.  They grow in chalk grassland, where they keep the best of company.  At Therfield Heath they share the turf with Hairy Violets Viola hirta, and later in the year, the fruiting heads, which are just as spectacular as the flowers, will stand above Bastard Toadflax Thesium humifusum, another rare (but much less showy) plant.  We were a little late to catch them at their best.  There is a short time in every Pasque Flower's life when its blooms are open enough to expose the golden stamens, but its sepals are still deep purple enough to create a startling contrast with them.  Soon the flowers fade to lilac, still pleasing, but not so garish.

It had been a warm day, and this seemed to have brought out the smaller of our two bloody-nosed beetles Timarcha goettingensis in good numbers; there were singles and pairs all over the grass.  Andy Schofield called this Britain's dopiest beetle, and they do have the air of an insect that is not in a hurry and has no great concerns in the world.  If they do come across something to rouse them into distress, they exude a spot of red fluid from their head and hope that whatever has forced them to divert from their languid state will go away.

Juniper jumpers

Here is another bug that has taken to garden cypresses.  This is Orsillus depressus, a Mediterranean species first found in Britain in Surrey in 1987.  Trying to work out whether bugs like this have been brought here or arrived of their own accord is difficult, but it seems that Orsillus depressus has been colonising northern Europe by both means.  There were plenty on the cypress at the end of the garden today, as well as a good number of the pretty and native Juniper Shield-bug Cyphostethus tristriatus.  Jumping host to garden cypresses has helped these species spread from their restricted ranges.  This is good for Cyphostethus and any other native juniper feeders, which would otherwise be in trouble in England, but how will they cope with the arrival of new competitors?

Two other shield-bugs were out today: this Green Shield-bug Palomena prasina attractively posed on the Rosemary, and a Hawthorn Shield-bug Acanthosoma haemorrhoidale hiding in the Ivy.

It was a good morning for ladybirds.  The apple tree yielded Kidney-spot Chilocorus renipustulatus, Fourteen-spot Propylea quatuordecimpunctata, Two-spot Adalia bipunctata, and Pine Exochomus quadripustulatus.

And finally, a quick thwack of the buddleja revealed last week's Garlic Mustard driller, Ceutorhynchus pallidactylus.