With nearly 400 recorded species, skinks are the largest family of lizards in Australia. They are widespread, common and spectacularly diverse. From snake-like legless species to the heavy-bodied land mullet that can live more than 20 years and reach a length of 70cm, to the six species of blue-tongues with their bizarre, large, blue-coloured tongues […]
Tag: the observer
New to nature No 107: Typhochlaena costae
There is a story, perhaps apocryphal, that Harvard professor and mycologist Roland Thaxter once gave a public lecture on the Laboulbeniales, an enigmatic group of fungi that grow on the integument of insects. A woman in the audience is said to have asked: “Professor Thaxter, this is all interesting, but of what value is it […]
Why the lynx effect would send Scotland wild
As Edinburgh Zoo’s panda freakshow continues to captivate the witless and the infantile, a real Scottish animal has been allowed to die. Under the noses of Scottish Natural Heritage, which likes to be known as the nation’s leading conservation body, the Scottish wildcat has all but been extinguished from the Highlands. The importance of this […]
Bumblebees take off with a special fungus weapon to save strawberries
Squadrons of bumblebees are being deployed in a novel attempt to prevent grey mould turning the summer’s strawberries into fluffy mush. The bees are routed via a one-way system in their hive through a tray of harmless fungus spores which, when delivered to flowers, ensure that the grey mould cannot take hold as the fruit […]
Industry, fires and poachers shrink Sumatran tigers’ last stronghold
Karman Lubis’s body was found near where he had been working on a Sumatran rubber plantation. His head was found several days later a mile away and they still haven’t found his right hand. He had been mauled by a Sumatran tiger that has been living in Batang Gadis National Park and he was one […]
New to nature No 103: Tinkerbella nana
The family Mymaridae includes more than 1,400 species of diminutive insects called fairyflies. They are not flies at all, but tiny wasps that deposit their eggs inside the eggs of other insects. Most of these parasitoids are found in tropical latitudes and the southern hemisphere, where they attack unborn offspring of true bugs, beetles, flies, […]
