Articles & Blogs - Page 48

Bringing you the latest articles, opinion and analysis in the conservation world

• 

  D is for Dragonfly

  Dragonflies still have the air of monsters from another age: spectacular, intricate hunting machines with powerful complex eyes and powers of flight almost unrivalled anywhere else in the animal kingdom.

• 

  Alien Invaders; The Threat of Invasive Species

  The EEA reported that invasive species are “a growing pressure on the natural world which are extremely difficult to reverse.” Especially since ecosystems are already weakened by other man-made threats, such as pollution and climate change.

• 

  A-Z of Invasive Marine Species: Darwin’s Barnacle

  Acorn barnacles are found in one of the severest conditions on the coast – rock faces on exposed beaches. On top of this, most tend to live high on the upper shore where they are uncovered for long periods of time by the tide.

• 

  C is for Carpet Beetle

  Members of the family specialise in scavenging a variety of plant and animal matter from hair and dry skin to pollen to dead insects, which probably explains the long-dead specimens resembling the aforementioned A.verbasci littering the deceased-fly-detritus rich windowsills of a rather crumbling flat I lived in last year.

• 

  Pangolin: Traded to Extinction?

  As well as scales, pangolins are also hunted for their meat, considered to be “delicious” by some, a pound of which can sell for hundreds of US dollars. Unborn pangolin foetuses are also eaten as a delicacy, often found in soups.

• 

  C is for Caprella mutica, an A-Z of Invasive Marine Species

  C. mutica belongs to a peculiar group of marine amphipod crustaceans. The head has two pairs of antennae and the body has multiple segments (pereonites), most with a pair of limbs (pereopods). Caprellids have long, thin bodies, and greatly reduced abdomens.

• 

  Humans vs Animals; the Urban Fox Dilemma

  Why, in 80 years of living in a somewhat disjointed co-existence, is it once again time to kill the “urban fox”?

• 

  Where Have All The Lions Gone?

  Scientists at Duke University reported that more than two-thirds of lions in Africa have disappeared in the last 50 years. Rapid human population growth, and all the threats to wildlife that this brings with it, has reduced both lion populations and the savannah in which they live.

• 

  B for Botrylloides violaceus, an A-Z of Invasive Marine Species

  Each colony of Botrylloides violaceus consists of many small individuals called zooids, that are arranged in elongated clusters called systems, within a firm matrix.

• 

  B is for Bush-Cricket

  Nineteen species have been recorded in Britain, of which at least ten are resident natives, and this list is lengthening as climate change drives the distribution of many species northwards.