Missing in action?

 

Missing in action?

The problem with recording stag beetles for the Great Stag Hunt (https://stagbeetles.ptes.org/take-part-in-the-great-stag-hunt/) is that one beetle looks pretty much like any other.

We found one a few years ago that had 5½ legs. Over the course of a couple of day the cats kept bringing it into the conservatory. They seemed intrigued by it but didn’t want to do anything with it other than carry it from outside to inside.

This morning we found one on his back on the patio. We tipped him onto his front and realised he was missing one mandible. It didn’t stop him rearing up aggressively, poor little thing, but then he moved away quickly, as much as a little creature can. Gilbert was extremely interested and wanted to nose him but we told him to desist.

An hour and a half later the beetle was in our sitting room, courtesy of Herschel, who deposited him and left. We have now put him back outside and hopefully that is where he will remain.

I wondered if beetles could regenerate missing parts and sadly, they can’t. We will never know how he lost his mandible; maybe it was in battle with a rival, who knows.         

  Monsieur stag beetle will develop a list to the right, I think.

April A to Z blogging challenge Newts

We have common smooth newts (Lissotriton vulgaris) in our garden pond. The story of our first newt can be found here. I’ve also written about newts here and here.

Newts are amphibians of the Salamander family (Salamandridae) and are found in North America, Northern Europe and western Asia and Russia. They start life in water and develop into juveniles that live on land, when they are known as efts, mentioned in ‘The Water-Babies’ by Charles Kingsley – ‘ . . .these efts are nothing else but the water-babies . . .’ 

One of their most intriguing characteristics is their ability to regenerate lost or damaged limbs and organs. Scientists have studied this regeneration for decades. Humans can regenerate liver tissue but that is all.

As adults newts may be fully or semi-aquatic. Terrestrial newts return to the water each year to breed, generally during June and July. The fertilised female lays 7 to 12 single eggs each day and usually places them on the leaves of pond plants. The leaves are often folded over and stuck to the eggs to protect them. One female may lay 400 eggs in the breeding season.

The eggs hatch in about three weeks and the tadpoles eat algae, small invertebrates and other tadpoles. They absorb oxygen directly from the water through feathery gills. After ten weeks they have metamorphosed into air-breathing efts with lungs. They are capable of reproduction at three years.

On a quiet summer day it is possible to hear a ‘popping’ sound as a newt comes to the pond surface for air. It is always a cause for delight when newts are seen – they seem to be shy, retiring creatures and with their olive green or khaki colouring they are well camouflaged in a pond busy with other, more readily spotted inhabitants and habitués.