Spineless Wonders

I loudly applaud the recent airing of Spring Watch for their delve into our native invertebrates micro world, but time and time again, when it comes to public vote for 'your favourite and iconic British wildlife' its mammals who feature heavily, a splattering of plants and if we are lucky, a lone token invertebrate. The token is always terrestrial, normally an insect and particularly brightly coloured. Why?

This observation has sparked debate amongst many of us who champion the great legions of the boneless. The fact is that out of all the animal life based on this planet, (not taking into account we are still discovering as well as loosing species here), over a staggering 80% are invertebrates with a meagre 0.4% of vertebrates. Yes, that is a point four. With the invertebrates tirelessly recycling, fertilising, pollinating, purifying and providing a base food source for most ecosystems, you would think they at least deserve a better shout out. What is even more disturbing is that while our terrestrial invertebrates get their occasional foot in the 'favourite wildlife' door, our aquatic, both freshwater and marine, are shamelessly ignored. 1 lone oyster filtrates 124 litres of water every 24 hours - we have already lost 85% of our global oyster reefs. With alien species invasion, habitat degradation, over exploitation, pollution and flow modification our aquatic invertebrates are in plight. Yet we happily munch away on muscles, cockles, prawns and even the odd lobster without so much as a nod in their direction. Please do not forget that its the zoo plankton and krill that keep the mightiest of all our mammals in the sea, quite literally, afloat. Freshwater species are in a similar sticky situation with a multitude of threats bearing down on them. The blue flash of a Kingfisher can be quite rightly considered as iconic, but without the tiniest and rather bland coloured invertebrates propping up its food web, a quick flash might well be the last thing we see.

Back on land lets put a value on invertebrates. A value we all understand, monetary. Research at Reading University has shown that pollinators are worth at least £510 million to the UKs agriculture. Insects like bees, beetles, flies and moths pollinate 84% of our crops. That's our food. Forget iPhones, iPods and iPads - without the basic necessity of food, we are out of the game. The iconic dawn chorus would be a pretty short and quiet affair too without invertebrates. Imagine no brownie points on valentines day because your florist can not source the suitably over-priced blooms. It's out of our country, but high on my particular list of needs, is the cocoa bean tree thankfully pollinated by midges. 

So what's happening, why are our precious invertebrates simply not courting the adoring medias coverage when it comes to popularity votes? Is it that we share the same mammalian class with the cute fluffiness and fur? Do we associate fellow wild mammals mannerisms with those of our much loved domestic pets? Ladybirds and butterflies are put forward as 'worth a vote' most probably because of their agreeable prettiness, rather like dolphins with their smiley faces, but are we that shallow and superficial? When it comes to invertebrates it would appear so. Described fittingly as the 'Spineless Backbone' of our planet recently, we need to increase the PR status of our life support system thats busily making our world a better place. I decided to run my own survey where I asked a diverse and extensive group of school children, age range from 4 to 11, what word they associated with invertebrates, bugs and I loathe to use the term myself, creepy-crawlies. The most common word I got back was 'sting'. The biggest majority of our population will complete their lives without ever experiencing the misfortune of being stung. Even with their bright warning stripes and colours, the sting is only used as the last ditched attempt to defend themselves against us. Sadly, it appears though we still nationally and collectively believe wasps and bees are out to hunt us down.

So what is the point of my ramble with regard to the iconic British wildlife vote? It is this. I am not by any means trying to belittle the importance of our magnificent mammals, birds or plants but simply asking to level the playing field and give our invertebrates the coverage they deserve. None of us want to see species of mammals become rarer and slip out of our sight,  but I can't help thinking that without the invertebrates, the slip would be a down right vertical slide.

We have many species that are 'public friendly' other than just the ladybird- although it rightly assumes it place in polls. Our endangered Stag Beetle, Rams Horn-Snail and White-Clawed Crayfish to name the mere tip of a colossal iceberg floating in todays uncertain waters. All are noteworthy and justifiably iconic.

Perhaps when the media, decide to run a poll in the future to determine our iconic wildlife, a few more boxes can be ticked for invertebrates and the token becomes less of a gesture.

Get ready to get out there!

As the idea of Spring starts to stir, its time to think about being proactive outside. Belonging to a society that encourages yours and your families interest is a really great thing to do. You can meet interesting people, talk and learn so much. Two of the biggest natural history societies in England are the British Entomological and Natural History Society www.benhs.org.uk/ and the Society for the History of Natural History www.shnh.org.uk/ . If you want something on a more personal level with meetings and field trips there are hundreds of local natural history societies in the UK - just Google your county and see what comes up! If you want to take part in important but also fun and easy surveys that really help the scientific community there are simply loads on the Internet. The surveys I fully endorse are the brilliant OPAL surveys www.opalexplorenature.org/ . These surveys include our climate, bugs, water, air and soil. They are easy to do, come with great resource packs and the results really do count. Great for schools, families or just anyone!

Involve the whole family or class and get the results! Identifying grassland invertebrates and preparing pit fall traps for a ground beetle survey - children getting out there, increasing their knowledge, learning new skills and having fun - just fantastic!

Spice up your Science!

Science weeks and festivals are nearly upon us. March is the month when many events take place up and down the country to get children and their families excited about science. Have a look for events around the UK. Find one near you and try to attend it with your family or school. Here is a great link for you http://www.britishscienceassociation.org/national-science-engineering-week .
If you live in Oxfordshire have a look on this site http://www.oxfordshiresciencefestival.co.uk/events/ .Why not host a special science event in your very own school? Science is a fabulous subject and embraces so much. You have Biology, Botany, Entomology, Ecology, Engineering, Physics, Chemistry, Cosmology and Astronomy to name but a few. These are such cool and interesting subjects! Bring science right into your life, get excited, discover and have fun learning!

Historic Horrors!

Parasites come in many forms but the one thing they all have in common is that they have to live off a living host. This relationship is not a good one for the host, who gets nothing from it. A parasitoid can even lead to its hosts death. A parasite is always much smaller than its host. Viruses are parasites as are quite a few invertebrates. There are even parasites that parasitize other parasites - how cool is that?! Tape worm, whip worm, round worm, intestinal fluke and liver fluke are just a few little beauties that can really spoil your day. This little group affect the intestines, lungs, brain, pancreas, liver and appendix between them. In certain countries they are still a problem but in our history they were rife. Human faeces have been dug up from Viking settlement sites in places such as York and they are infested with some of this merry collection. (Worth a visit is the Viking Festival in York 16th-24th Feb 2013 http://www.jorvik-viking-festival.com/ - visit the Jorvik Centre to see some 1000 year old worm invested poo for yourself as well as having a great Viking experience!) Other great little parasites which caused our ancestors some considerable trouble, and are still here with us today but hopefully rather more controlled, are the bedbugs, head lice, body lice and the rather dubious pubic louse. Under the microscope these little chaps are beautifully built for the job of hanging on and sucking blood. Right little historic horrors!

Re-enactments are great practical learning opportunities for children. Brilliant with your school or  just pure family fun!

Brilliant Beetles!

Here are some big numbers for you; 1,400,000 species of animals have been described so far and that is still rising. 800,000 of those are insects. That is a huge number of amazing variations of life - we are not including archnids (spiders), mirapods (millipedes), gastropods (snails) etc here either! I think everyone who likes invertebrates has a favourite order. (When classifying organisms they are broken down in groups until a single species is identified. 'Order' is a taxonomic rank, in our case this is at the point where we are listed as 'Primates'). The great thing is that there are simply so many orders to choose from! My absolute favourite is the Coleoptera order. This order embraces all the beetles. http://www.amentsoc.org/insects/fact-files/orders/coleoptera.html  Coleoptera actually means 'sheathed wing' in Greek which is a pretty accurate description as beetles have an elytra. This is a hard body casing that has evolved from their front pair of wings and now protects their single set of wings underneath. (Not all beetles have wings and not all beetles can fly though just to add a bit of spice). Us humans have had a thing about beetles for a long time. The Egyptians worshiped the Scarab beetle, the Vietnamese win or loose money betting on fighting beetles, over a third of the world eat beetle larvae and in Mexico they even stick gem stones on them and wear them as living jewellery. We know for sure that they were around in the Lower Permian period, a mere 299,000,000 years ago. As more fossils come to light, they might be even older. We also know that the first flowers were around at this time. Simple flowers such as the Magnolias we still have with us today. Bees, butterflies and moths had not evolved yet so guess who was doing the pollinating? Yes it was the beetles and some of them are still extremely important pollinators today. It is pure favoritism I will admit, but there is no getting away from it - beetles are quite simply brilliant!!

                                      What an fantastic mix of shapes and colours
                                                               - something for everyone!

Pins and Paper.

It takes time and patience to properly pin an insect for display. (Please see archived blogs on 'perfect pinning'). Today with a small group of older children, we prepared some dead Malaysian Ghost Grasshoppers. The first pin is pushed gently into the middle (thorax) of the grasshopper. It was carefully placed on a setting board. The setting board itself was a polystyrene square with a narrow trench down the middle. The grasshopper's body was put into this trench so that its wings could be carefully laid out. Pins are not put through the fragile wing, (or any other part of the body), as this would damage them. So acid free paper strips were carefully placed over the out stretched wing and these were then pinned into place. These papers will hold the wings in place while they dry out and set. Each leg was then carefully prized out and pins put either side of each individual one to hold it in place. Finally the antenna were also supported by pins into a position that will display them. Now it is time to wait. The insects have to fully dry out before all the paper and pins can be removed - except the only pin that pierced the body, the very first pin. This central pin is what you hold to move the specimen and it is on this pin, under the body, that you place the insects information. A fabulous morning and brilliant work to be proud of!

A really superbly pinned grasshopper. A pinned insect should be laid out to display the most of its anatomical features for research. This one will now be left to dry and set before being labeled and properly mounted.

Encouraging investigation . . .

Animal bones can have a fascination for us all, especially children. Just think of all the children around the world who are totally absorbed by dinosaur bones. All are desperate to grow up and become palaeontologists- which to be honest, is no bad thing! When I present Natural History roadshows in schools, I often bring with me animal skulls and some of them I choose because they display certain abnormalities. This leads to investigation and encourages the children to ask questions - how did it happen? did it affect the animal in its daily life? was it fatal? etc. We will also look closely at the placement of eyes - why are they in a different setting to our own? Why do deer even have antlers and what are they made from? How do they use them? What happens to them when they loose them? Loads of good investigative questions and its great fun to encourage the children to think. They very often surprise themselves!
Children often recognise a Fallow deer skull with its large antlers but not our other smaller deer species. Even a skull with very small antlers present, (such as a Muntjac), children can often think they are a dog or badger. We have 6 species of deer in the UK but 4 of those species have been introduced. Only the Red and Roe deer are truly native.



Two Muntjac skulls being bleached. Bleaching is part of the cleaning preparations of a skull. The bleach must not cover the antlers as it will remove their colour.