Biology – Page 2 – David Bradley

Tongue and eye coordination in Hummingbird Hawk-moths

You will know by now just how fascinated I have been these last 5+ years by the the section of the Lepidoptera we know here as moths…and also the moths we call butterflies. One of the most wonderful of creatures in this group is the Hummingbird Hawk-moth (not to be confused with the rather different US species known as hummingbird moths).

This moth, Macroglossum stellatarum, is present across Europe and Asia. It’s a day-flying species that nectars on lots of different types of flower. It does look like a tiny hummingbird, but of course those birds are only found in the Americas so don’t overlap with airspace here.

Hummingbird hawk-moth

Anyway, a recent paper in PNAS discusses how the moths coordinate their proboscis, to feed and extract nectar from flowers. The research suggests that contrary to early theories, the moths use vision to coordinate proboscis movement, even though such complex eye–appendage coordination is unexpected in invertebrates.

Hummingbird hawk-moth

Visually guided appendage reaching, such as hand to eye coordination in apes is an everyday part of our lives. It involves the perception of the relative positions of the object and the appendage in three-dimensional space as the appendage moves toward the object. That takes a lot of brain power and great eyesight.

Hummingbird hawk-moth

Now, Anna Stöckl and colleagues tracked the movement of the proboscis of Hummingbird Hawk-moths as the moths explored artificial flower patterns. They found that the insects probed the visual patterns with their proboscis to a greater extent than a homogeneous flower background, suggesting visual guidance. The authors also compared the probing behaviour of the moths’ proboscis under occluded and free vision conditions. Vision occlusion impaired the moths’ ability to probe in alignment with artificial flower patterns, suggesting that visual feedback of the probing proboscis is required for targeted probing.

Visual guidance fine-tunes probing movements of an insect appendage, Proc Natl Acad Sci (USA), 2024, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2306937121

Nocturnes – the forest moths of the Himalayas

Looking forward to seeing this Sundance documentary:

Nocturnes (India, USA) directed and produced by Anirban Dutta and co-directed by Anupama Srinivasan. From the Sundance Festival website:

“In the dense forests of the Eastern Himalayas, moths are whispering something to us. In the dark of night, two curious observers shine a light on this secret universe.”

What’s in a name?

What names we give the flora and fauna. Names are critical for scientific discourse and general conversation alike. They can be weird and wonderful, informative, confusing, hilarious even, and sometimes baffling. While common, or vernacular, names vary wildly, science, of course, has a relatively standardised method of naming living things. The common format, which is often colloquially known as the Latin name, is to have the species in a genus, a family group, and then to follow that genus name with the species name.

For example, in the UK, we might talk of the Snowdrop, or the Common Snowdrop. This delicate plant with white flowers that emerge in the spring is known to scientists as Galanthus nivalis. The genus is Galanthus and includes all the different species of snowdrops. The species name nivalis pins us to the Common Snowdrop. The scientific name, or binomial, tells scientists and others the exact species regardless of their native tongue.

While the Common Snowdrop is not a particularly confusing example, in the birding world we might discuss Lapwing in the vernacular. It’s more formally known as the Northern Lapwing to distinguish it from other lapwing species. However, in English, this species has many other names, such as Peewit, Green Plover, Pyewipe, and Tuit; there will be dozens and dozens of names elsewhere, of course. The Lapwing’s scientific name is Vanellus vanellus. There should be no confusion when given the scientific name.

It is worth noting that in taxonomy, the naming and classification of living things, there is always change as we learn more about known species and discover new ones. Often the original scientific names created in the 1700s or the 1800s need to be updated as new knowledge, such as genetic information becomes available. The Lapwing was originally in the wader (shorebird) genus Stringa, which includes the shanks and tattlers, but is more correctly given its place among the other lapwings in Vanellus.

You may have noticed that Vanellus vanellus seems to have a double name. The genus and species name being the same. This is known as a tautonym, as if there were some tautology in its name. Usually, this tautonymic naming nomenclature refers to the fact that the species is the type of the genus. So, the Northern Lapwing is considered the archetypal species in its genus.

There are lots of examples of such tautonyms discussed previously on Sciencebase. I’ve also mentioned how scientific names are not always binomial, they can have three parts so that sub-species can be named formally. For example, the full scientific name for the Lowland Mountain Gorilla is an interesting tautonymic trinomial: Gorilla gorilla gorilla.

Scientific names are usually printed in italics, and the genus name takes a capital letter but the species and sub-species are all lower case. As in, the scientific name of the Green Sandpiper, Tringa ochropus. You will also note that there is a good reason for capitalising vernacular names so that when one reads the phrase Green Sandpiper one knows that it is the specific bird that is being discussed rather than a sandpiper that happens to be green. This is more obviously useful when discussing various other species with even more potentially ambiguous names, such as the Little Owl. If it were not capitalised, then are we talking about the specific Little Owl or a generic owl that happens to be small?

So far, so good.

The world of genetic updates, recording corrections, and other modifications aside, there is a growing problem in the taxonomic world. Unfortunately, there are numerous names, vernacular and scientific, that do not sit well with modern values. The first example of this that came on to the Sciencebase radar was the moth species Lymantria dispar. This beautiful moth can be something of a pest. But its English vernacular name is to some ears more problematic than the eating habits of its larvae because for most of the time we have recorded this species it has been known as the Gypsy Moth.

Like I said, in some situations a rather unfortunate name that has been removed in the USA where L. dispar is now known as the Spongy Moth. This new vernacular name alludes to the mass of eggs laid by the female of the species. The change presumably avoids the issue of a racially sensitive vernacular name. Whether or not we are to rename the eponymous and vintage de Havilland aircraft similarly remains to be seen. Company founder Geoffrey de Havilland was a keen amateur lepidopterist and gave several of his aircraft moth names.

Now, the obvious problem is that any name change means that all of the printed works that mention that name are instantaneously out of date and as the old name fades into history, there will come a point where younger readers will not know it at all, not know to search those ancient tomes for the Gypsy Moth, for example, and will fruitlessly search for the Spongy Moth. Of course, with the digitised knowledge, there is the potential to do a global search and replace on the term Gypsy Moth and to swap it for the name Spongy Moth. But, that too brings with it a problem, perhaps for the older readers who have not yet heard the new term who then search in vain for Gypsy Moth missing all those fascinating references to the Spongy.

Thankfully, we still have Lymantria dispar so there is no problem for the world of science in terms of the vernacular names. But, there is an emerging problem. My attention was drawn to a recent article entitled “Protecting stable biological nomenclatural systems enables universal communication“, which discusses the issues that science might face in terms of changes in taxonomic names.

The article suggests that a stable system of naming biological systems has facilitated unambiguous scientific communication internationally. It then adds that there have been calls for a reboot of the naming systems that asks for fairer, more inclusive and socially just scientific nomenclature. The article suggests that the urge to remove or revise names associated with controversial individuals or offensive words comes from a genuine and deep-felt place. However, there is the likelihood, the article suggests, that the damage would far outweigh the healing that might come from such revisions.

The main problems that could arise might be summarised as follows:

Historical accuracy and continuity: One of the primary problems with the notion of cancel culture in biological taxonomy is the potential erasure of historical names. Renaming species to align with modern values may result in the loss of valuable information, hindering the continuity of scientific knowledge.
Impact on the scientific literature: Changing vernacular and scientific names can create confusion and disrupt the integrity of scientific literature, as discussed above. It requires extensive efforts to update databases, publications, and educational materials, impacting the accessibility of information for researchers and students and indeed for the public at a time when the perception of science needs bolstering.
Unintended consequences: The attempt to eliminate potentially offensive names may lead to unintended consequences, such as the loss of cultural and historical context associated with the original names. Additionally, renaming species may not necessarily address the root issues related to inclusivity and justice.
Subjectivity in name assessment: Determining which names are deemed offensive or inappropriate is subjective and may vary among individuals and cultures. This subjectivity introduces challenges in developing a universally accepted standard for renaming biological entities. Many of the worrying terms may well have been misconstrued as having inappropriate meaning or associations that do not exist.

Of course, social sensitivity is important and removing or renaming offensive terms reflects a desire to avoid perpetuating harmful stereotypes or biases to improve inclusion and diversity within the scientific community.

Indeed, many of the terms that have been in place for at least a century or two are often misconceived as offensive simply because they emerged from similar etymological roots as words we now consider offensive in social contexts. Some of these terms are not inherently offensive and are often neutral Latin or Greek terms or are coincidentally the same when translated into another language as a word considered offensive locally. Some are thought to be referencing individuals that they are not. It can be confusing and would be even more so if terms were redacted that needn’t be.

What we need to avoid is the disruption of scientific communication and the erasure of historical continuity. It is worth noting that the current system has at its core transcultural communication and operational neutrality.

Suffolk Wildlife Trust – Lackford Lakes

In our pursuit of nature’s wonders, we do sometimes leave the county of Cambridgeshire and head into Norfolk, that’s our usual modus operandi. Occasionally though we head east into Suffolk instead. One of the closest nature destinations in that county is the SWT site of Lackford Lakes not far from Bury St Edmunds.

Male Siskin feeding in an alder tree at SWT Lackford Lakes — Male Siskin feeding in an alder tree

I should point out that we’re quite lucky living near Cambridge. We have some decent wildlife spots close by, we’re centrally placed almost with various reserves within a 20-minute drive. We’re quite central to many others that are no more than 40-50 minutes drive away. We can even get to the Norfolk or Suffolk coast in not much more than an hour if the traffic’s not too heavy.

Nuthatch perched on mossy log — Nuthatch

Anyway, we don’t get to Lackford Lakes as often as we should, but that said it then means that any trip is quite special when we do. And, while I don’t think we’ve seen any bird or insect species there that we haven’t seen in other places over the years, it’s always fun to visit just for those species that we don’t see commonly on our local patch, such as Siskin.

Foreground shows a Snipe with ruffled tail feathers and a male Teal in the background — Snipe with ruffled tail feathers

We also saw rabbit and muntjac deer, but here’s a list of the bird species we saw, in a vaguely sorted order. There may have been one or two other gull species:

Goldcrest
Siskin
Goldfinch
Bullfinch
Great Tit
Blue Tit
Long-tailed Tit
Coal Tit
Marsh Tit
Dunnock
Chaffinch
Greenfinch
Robin
Nuthatch
Wren
Blackbird
Starling
Lapwing
Common Buzzard
Snipe
Cormorant
Mallard
Mute Swan
Tufted Duck
Gadwall
Pochard
Teal
Wigeon
Shelduck
Great Crested Grebe
Moorhen
Coot
Greylag Goose
Canada Goose
Black-headed Gull
Carrion Crow
Rook
Jackdaw
Magpie
Wood Pigeon
Collared Dove
Pheasant

Nuthatch with fat pellet clinging to mossy log — Nuthatch with fat pellet

Six species of deer

The UK has six species of deer living wild.

Red Deer, Cervus elaphus – true native species found in Scotland, the Lake District, and on Exmoor, as well as Northern Ireland, much larger than all other deer, and indeed any other British mammal. Distinctive rusty, red-brown colour in summer. Short tail and pale rump patch.

Red Deer, English Lake District, very old, low-light, scanned film photo

Roe Deer, Capreolus capreolus – true native species present across the whole of England, Scotland, and Wales. Rusty red coat in summer, grey-ish in winter. Prominent white rump and no tail. Females have a small
tush or tuft of hair on their rump in winter.

Roe Deer, Long Drove, Cottenham — Roe Deer

Fallow, Dama dama – native and living freely across England and Wales and into Scotland as well as Northern Ireland, but also. Their coat is quite varied some pale, some less so but with white spots. Usually have a distinctive black inverted horseshoe shape on their rump, and a black stripe on their tail. Only species in the UK where the stags have palmate (hand-shaped) antlers.

(Reeves’) Muntjac, Muntiacus reevesi – introduced species, also known as the Barking Deer for its canine-sounding call. Smallest of deer in UK. Russet brown, distinctive shape and hunched posture. Wide, flat tail with an often-displayed white underside. Present across all of southern England.

Reeves' Muntjac Deer — Reeves’ Muntjac Deer

Chinese Water, Hydropotes inermis – introduced species. 10 percent of world population found in East Anglia and a few other places in England. Usually russet brown coat, which turns grey in winter. Distinctive tusks in males rather than antlers. Often described as having a Teddy bear face with round and protuberant forward-facing ears. Short tail, rump has no distinctive markings, making it distinct.

Chinese Water Deer, RSPB Ouse Fen (Earith), showing male's tusks — Chinese Water Deer

Sika, Cervus nippon – introduced species originally on Brownsea Island but present in that region and North West Scotland, also Northern Ireland. Similar coats to Fallow Deer but shorter tail and a less distinct black stripe, distinctive white rump, also noticeable white glands on the hind legs of the deer.

More about deer and identification on the British Deer Society website.

Waxwing irruption

First Waxwings of the New Year.

Two of around 11 Waxwings glowering at birders from high perches

There is an ongoing Bohemian Waxwing irruption in the UK with hundreds, if not thousands, of this most northerly species of bird having headed south in search of food over the last couple of months. I heard some flying over our house in November, but finally saw a tiny flock of four feeding on rowan trees outside somebody’s house opposite the primary school in the Cambridgeshire village of Coton. I got some nice photos but it was a dull day, so it was lovely to have a sunny New Year’s Day and to know that some had arrived to feed on rowans next to the railway station in another nearby village, Great Shelford.

Zoomed in and cropped Waxwing headshot

We’d actually tried to see them them week before and noted a flock of about 20 in flight heading away from the station. But, on New Year’s Day, there were 11 glowering from the tall trees next to the railway station. They were plucking ivy berries from the plants growing on those trees but because there were so many birders, twitchers, and toggers near their favoured rowans, the birds had to choose their moments carefully to fly in and snatch a few berries in very brief bursts of feeding activity.

Waxwing lunging for one of the last rowan berries on the tree

Waxwings posing whimsically as musical notes on a stave, perhaps

Waxwing in flight. Had to push the levels hard to get a photo out of this one as it was very underexposed in the shadows — Waxwing in flight

Waxwings head south from Scandinavia when the food supply falls short, usually in large numbers when they’ve had a good breeding season, and there’s simply not enough berries to go round. Each bird can eat hundreds of berries each day. Hence the irruptions. I check BirdGuides most days and they are still present in our neck of the woods in good-sized flocks that come and go. Next decent sunny day, I will head out to track down the closest flock. It’d be wonderful if they turned up in our village again (there was one at the start of the year).

My natural highlights of 2023

A few natural highlights from another year of trying to get a perfect wildlife snap! You can find the photos I took of these highlights littered around the Sciencebase website, in my Imaging Storm galleries, on my Instagram and Mastodon.

We started the year on the North Norfolk coast as usual, with Pink-footed Geese etc at Wells, and Shorelarks, Snow Buntings, and a White-tailed Eagle at Holkham, and various other sightings of avian life elsewhere on our walks.

Soon after we got home there was an alert for a relative rarity and so I saw a couple of Smew at Meadowlane Pits, St Ives. Later that month, Mrs Sciencebase and I went to NT Burwell Fen for the Short-eared Owls. I wrote about processing my SEO photo earlier in the year, you may recall. If I remember rightly there was just one at that time but at least a couple of Barn Owls. There were seven or so when I went back to Burwell Fen in November, also saw one of the pair of Little Owl, and on my way home, a Merlin flew across the footpath in front of me, calling all the while.

Lots of Red Kites still hanging around the A10 dump viewed from Long Drove, Cottenham. They peaked at between 40 and 50 at the end of 2022, although my record count of them among the Long Drove hedgerows and trees behind the dump was 26, which is still amazing for this part of the world and testament to how well this species, once extinct in the UK, is now doing. Last time I checked there were a dozen or so, early December.

Mrs Sciencebase and I had made another visit to Norfolk in February for an early-morning Wader Spectacular at RSPB Snettisham. It was dark and drizzly when we got up, but worth the effort to see the thousands, if not tens of thousands, of Knot, countless Oystercatcher, lots of Avocet etc doing their thing as the high tide peaked. Spectacular.

Then, in March, I suffered an injury, which precluded any driving, cycling, or walking for several weeks. Moreover, that injury, coupled with bad weather, did nothing much for my getting outdoors and exploring nature. However, closer to home, our son counted 34 frogs in and around our pond one night and we had lots of frogspawn again this year. Plenty of damselflies used the pond over the summer and some dragonflies too. Incredibly, one morning, stuck in the house, I saw a Spoonbill fly up the street, which was quite astonishing. At the time, there had been reports of one south of us that ended up on a reserve north of us.

I got a decent shot of a Green Hairstreak at the local Les King Wood, which later in the year won me an award. We also had some butterfly species in the back garden that I’ve not seen in the garden before, notably Common Blue and Small Copper.

My prize-winning Green Hairstreak butterfly

We saw our first Choughs on a trip to Anglesey in May as well as Guillemots, Fulmars, Kittiwakes, Razorbills, a couple of Puffins and an egg-stealing Raven.

The weather wasn’t great during the main butterfly season, but I still managed to catch sight of Black Hairstreak, Purple Hairstreak, and Purple Emperor again. Ticked just one new butterfly species this year, despite efforts to find one or two others off our local patch, that was Dingy Skipper at Devil’s Dyke, Newmarket. In the previous two butterflying seasons, I’d added 5 or 6 each year to my “tick list” and found new colonies, previously unreported, of a couple of hairstreak species. The White-letter and Purple were again present in Rampton Spinney too.

I headed to Magog Down nature reserve at what I hoped would be the height of the Small Blue butterfly season and saw dozens and dozens of these dainty little creatures. Many of them landed on camera and bag and coat and trousers while I was trying to photograph their activities among the wildflower meadows there! My one or two trips to Trumpington Meadows this year were relatively fruitless. See also the Edwards’ Wood in Dry Drayton, quite a few Marbled White there again this year though.

Mrs Sciencebase and I headed back to North Norfolk for a camping trip in Stiffkey where I did a bit of toilet-block mothing and saw my first Beautiful China-mark and Marbled Brown moths. We also camped much more locally near RSPB Ouse Fen this year and had early morning Bittern but little else. Cambridge Folk Festival this year had us camping under a Horse Chestnut tree and seeing dozens of Horse Chestnut Leaf-miner moth, which I’d seen in the garden once or twice this season.

While we were staying in Stiffkey we headed to Trimingham where Bee-eaters were attempting to nest and breed in a disused quarry. We had good views of them sporadically over the course of an hour or two.

First sighting of an Orange Conch micro moth at Les King Wood. Also saw Small Eggar larval nest, Brampton Wood. Brassy Longhorns once more on Cottenham Lode. It’s such a shame that even after my eco efforts the Environment Agency still feels the need to hack back the lode banks and destroy the flourishing wildflowers on the upper part of the slope so early in the season.

Another owl sighting was a Tawny Owl that flew out in front of us on the High Street in the village as we cycled home at dusk from choir rehearsal one evening. We heard Tawny Owls on the village green, but also in our neighbours’ gardens on several occasions in the late summer and into the autumn. Little Owl also heard occasionally somewhere on the village green after dark.

I took part in a mothing morning at Coton Orchard in the summer, which was very interesting. That did mean I missed out on a butterflying event at Chippenham Fen. So I headed there the day after and ticked Scarlet Tiger moth and Silver Barred (although I only have photographic evidence of the former).

2022 was an irruption year for Clouded Yellow but we had to go overseas, Cala’n Porter on Menorca specifically to see them this year. While we were there we also saw Cleopatra, Swallowtail, and possibly Two-tail Pasha, an African species of Blue butterfly in numbers. Also Pine Processionary moth after the rains of our final night in the hotel. A highlight was perhaps Booted Eagle flying low over our hotel, Egyptian Vultures at a beautiful cove we walked miles to and swam at. There were also lots of Pied Flycatcher, Shrike, and Black Redstart on an early morning walk, and numerous Blue Rock Thrush at the aforementioned cove.

Our next trip involved a short stop at rellies, who were not surprisingly incensed by an Indian Meal Moth infestation in their home. That stopover was on the way to Dorset and Corfe Castle. We saw Sika Deer again at RSPB Arne as well as Osprey, but no White-tailed Eagles there this year. We did catch sight of a lot of Red Squirrels and dozens of Spoonbill on Brownsea Island on a Poole Harbour trip. I also did a bit of mothing in the courtyard garden at our Corfe Castle holiday cottage and recorded my first Autumnal Rustic, Feathered Ranunculus, Heath Rustic, and Horse Chestnut moth there.

Red Squirrel, Brownsea Island, Poole Harbor, Dorset

One of 70+ Spoonbill, Brownsea Island lagoon

Meanwhile, back at the ranch. I’ve recorded well over 8000 moth specimens in our back garden in 2023 of 324 species. 44 of those were new for the garden this year and included some of the most wonderful vernacular names for micro and macro moths: Acer Sober, Alder Signal, Birch Conch, Blackthorn Slender, Breckland Plume, Brindled Shoot, Bud Moth, Bordered Carl, Common Cosmet, Common Slender, Corn Moth, Cypress Groundling, Dark-barred Twist, Dark Pin Knot-horn, Dusky Groundling, Early Oak-piercer, Ermine Knot-horn, Feathered Bright, Fruitlet Mining Tortrix, Fulvous Clothes Moth, Leopard Moth, Lesser Tawny Tubic, Little Grass-veneer, Horse Chestnut Leaf-miner, Mallow Groundling, Marbled Orchard Tortrix, Netted Argent, Northern Deep-brown Dart, Pale-backed Clothes Moth, Pale-streak Grass-veneer, Pine Leaf-mining Moth, Pine Marble, Pointed Groundling, Poplar Kitten, Red-brindled Dwarf, Red Chestnut, Ruddy Flat-body, Small Wainscot, Smoky-barred Marble, Spruce Knot-horn, Strawberry Tortrix, Thatch Groundling etc.

Autumnal Rustic recorded in Corfe Castle — My first Autumnal Rustic, recorded in Corfe Castle

Late November, we knew there were a few Short-eared Owls (perhaps) five at NT Burwell Fen. It’s only 20 minutes drive from here, so we headed out on a Monday lumchtime with a picnic. Got there just after 1pm, 5 or 6 Shorties were up and at it by about 2:30pm. The light was pretty much gone by about 3:15pm. My usual feeling is that these birds seem to be most active about an hour before sunset, but it felt like sunset happened an hour early. The various photographers hanging around and complaining that there were too many people there reminded me of a comment someone made about how it’s “all the bloody tourists” that spoil it for them when they go travelling!

Towards the end of November, I was picking up the sound of an occasional Waxwing flying over the house (audio birding with the Merlin app) and at the same time, the birding reports were heralding the arrival of small flocks reaching England. As I update this, 24th December 2023, I can report that I’ve visited three local spots that have had reports of Waxwing and have seen four feeding on rowan trees opposite Coton primary school. Those flocks have moved on, but others seem to be coming in, there’s plenty of time this winter to catch sight of Waxwing again. I’ve written about the interesting places where you might see Waxwing before. In addition, I know there are lots in the North East, a very large flock of 150+ in Jesmond, numerous on the Norfolk coast, and at least one flock of 70+ in Norwich. There were early reports of flocks of 500+ in Scotland.

Anyway, I’m hoping for a better year in terms of improved mobility in 2024 and given better weather and the opportunity to make the most of the butterfly and birding seasons, I will hopefully have some new wildlife to show you this time next year!

Waxing lyrical in Bohemia

I was chuffed to bits to catch up with these delightful winter visitors not 20 minutes from home. There were just 4 of the 20+ that had been showing an hour or so before I arrived #waxwings.