War of the Worlds

Dicranopalpus ramosus originally a Moroccan species now enjoying life across most of Europe including the Yorkshire Coast.  

I think you will agree there are certain resemblances between harvestmen and H.G. Wells alien antagonists in war of the worlds. The book itself is littered with many underlying themes of Darwinism and natural selection, which ultimately at some point in their evolutionary past made harvestmen diverge from true spiders. These truly Martian creatures can be found throughout the region, in a wide variety of guises but always with long spindly legs and a single sectioned body.  Despite this week's heavy rain and time at work we still managed to rack up a couple of harvestmen for the YETI's cause.

The first of which( seen above) is Dicranopalpus ramosus, a distinctive and easily found species. Most gardens in the region have potential to support them, checking out sun exposed walls, fences and tree trunks will often produce individuals. They have a unique way of resting by which they keep their legs close together rather than fanning them like other harvestmen, as well as the forked almost crab like pedipalps. This species has colonised most of Europe within the past 100 years, having formerly been found in Morocco, almost but not quite as impressive as an apocalyptical alien invasion! The second species this week is Oligolophus tridens, a rather bland ground dweller, found climbing a tree. 

Oligolophus tridens, a short legged species which tends not to normally climb trees. Try telling that to this individual seen galloping up a tree trunk, above an area of recently flooded riverbank.  

It would be plain wrong to have all this talk about aliens without mentioning grey squirrel, a species as alien as a flying saucer and one which splits as many opinions, despite the truth being out there. This species was a guaranteed addition to the mammal list before 2013 began and not surprisingly I think most of the Yeti challengers will have this one ticked off by now. Grey squirrels as the "carolinensis" component of the scientific name suggests are American member of the UK's fauna. Despite being a welcomed entertainer to many garden feeding stations, the success of this species in the UK has been to the detriment of some of our native wildlife. The most notable of these species is the red squirrel, an unfortunate mammals which is very unlikely to make the Yeti list in 2013. It is not the larger more aggressive nature of greys but the fact they are a vector for parapoxvirus (visually similar to myxomatosis in rabbit) a disease reds lack sufficient immunity too. Greys also tend to out-compete the smaller reds, especially in winter food caching. 

Grey Squirrel, an established member of the regions fauna and stalwart for a mammal year list.  

Slightly less depressingly we also managed to pick up our first butterfly of the year in the shape of a hibernating peacock butterfly, in a disused farm building. This species is less often associated with buildings in comparison with small tortoiseshell and tends to use hollow trees more frequently for hibernation. Despite having bright eye-spots and the ability to hiss like a snake, many peacocks are eaten by woodmice in late autumn when they begin hibernation. After surviving the winter, many are chomped by brown long eared bats, as they attempt to emerge in the spring. 

Hibernating Peacock, using a compact camera (the photographer not the butterfly), hopefully we will be able to post some better photos during the spring sunshine.