Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2021 i BBC Wildlife Magazine

A far cry from the ease of a Saturday-night takeaway, this black-backed jackal must stretch every sinew to catch its meal. One of three species of jackal to be found in Africa, it is not a fussy eater – happily hunting everything from reptiles to insects, grazing on grass and berries, and scavenging on scraps. Occasionally, a few jackals will group together to take down an antelope. After patiently watching doves drinking at a waterhole in South Africa, this individual seizes the moment, running and jumping right over the water in an attempt to grab its prey. The final score? Dove: 1. Jackal: 0.…

The magical nocturnal displays of fireflies are becoming a significant tourist attraction around the world, according to new research from the IUCN Firefly Specialist Group, which finds that this new-found popularity comes at a cost to the insects. While firefly tourism occurs on only a small, informal scale in the UK (our two species of glow-worm belong to the firefly beetle family), in India, Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand and the United States it has become big business. The biologists report that one small region of Mexico attracted 120,000 tourists during the brief 2019 mating season. That’s a lot of feet to trample firefly habitat, some of which has been degraded by tourism developments. Meanwhile, torches and mobile phones can disrupt firefly courtship. Fireflies are, says Sara Lewis, co-chair of the IUCN…

The main method for collecting information on tiger populations across their range is camera-trap. Two devices are positioned on either side of a trail, so that when a tiger passes by, it is photographed from both sides. The striped pattern of a tiger is unique to each animal, allowing for individuals to be recognised, but it is imperative that both sides of the big cat are captured. Responsibility for the co-ordination of tiger population estimates falls to the national government. NGOs working for tiger conservation within tiger range countries will contribute equipment, scientists and time to the endeavour. The data collected is then passed to a national tiger authority which co-ordinates analysis, giving rise to a national population number.…

Everyone loves shieldbugs – why else would we have given them such a heroic and heraldic name? These distinctive bugs are relatively large, stout and brightly coloured – and robust enough that they can be picked up with impunity. They walk across the hand with a friendly clockwork gait and take to the wing from the end of a finger with an assured model-aeroplane whirr. They are highly photogenic, and there are just enough of them (about 70 British species) to pique the interest of non-specialists. ‘Bug’ (also bugg or bugge) is an old word. Though it is often used nowadays to refer to almost any small, mean creepy-crawly, for the strict entomologist it means a member of the insect order Hemiptera. Characterised by long piercing and sucking mouthparts and…

The gaze of a golden snub-nosed monkey is strikingly human – yet it was long hunted for meat, fur and traditional medicines. Today, perhaps 15,000 individuals survive in montane forests of Sichuan, southern Shaanxi and Hubei provinces. This Endangered species is now strictly protected and, with hunting of wild animals banned in China, faces a brighter future. As well as the characteristic bluish face and golden fur, this individual sports curious growths at the corners of his mouth, telltale features of a male; his long, sharp canine teeth are thankfully not bared. The Gaoligongshan tree frog, pictured in the namesake mountains of Yunnan, is one of dozens of endemic amphibian species in the province – which, along with the uplands of neighbouring Sichuan, comprises China’s most biodiverse region. Its varied…

TV choice Dive into the world of whales Hollywood film producer and environmentalist James Cameron uncovers breathtaking whale behaviour. SECRETS OF THE WHALES DISNEY PLUS Announced as a new series for Earth Day 2021, Disney Plus has unveiled a documentary that should excite any whale lover. Filmed over three years in 24 locations, it is rightly described as an ‘epic journey’. Each of the four episodes focuses on a different whale or dolphin species: orca, humpback, beluga and sperm, with narwhals also making an appearance. Each also centres on a different theme of behaviour; exploring family ties, communication, cooperation and hunting. You cannot fault the series on its spectacular cinematography. The joint movie-making skills of producer James Cameron and photographer Brian Ferry are evident throughout, with epic sweeping footage, heart-rending…

“He was the runt of his litter and could barely keep up with his mother.” I knew I’d been accepted once he left a mouse at the door of my tent. It was 6am, and after this precocious island fox dropped off its prey, he sat there waiting for me to emerge from my dwelling along the rocky, shores of Prisoners Harbor, located on the northside of Santa Cruz Island. This is the largest isle in the Channel Islands National Park, and the most biodiverse off the California coast. It all began because my normal kayaking operations had been temporarily relocated here while a new pier was constructed at Scorpion Anchorage, 10km away. For 19 years, I’ve guided kayaking trips on this chain of isles, but I’ve never experienced such…

Beautifully disguised among the dappled greens of the verdant rainforest, the Amazon wood lizard is a master of crypsis – remaining motionless, just its spying eyes swivelling in search of insects. Days tend to be spent vertically, clinging to shrubs and small tree trunks; nights are spent horizontally, lying on branches or palm fronds. Fifteen per cent of the Amazon’s forest cover has been lost in the last 50 years. Thankfully, this lizard is still classed as being of Least Concern by the IUCN.…

Dippers Plump and sooty brown, with a broad white bib, the dipper is the archetypal bird of upland streams and rivers. Often you will spot one flying low over the water on fast, whirring wings, or bobbing on a waterside rock. Most of its food is obtained by diving below the surface in search of caddisfly, mayfly and stonefly larvae. Goosanders These saw-billed diving ducks are larger than mallards, with a rakish, streamlined silhouette. The males have bottle-green heads, while those of the females are reddish-brown. Young salmon, trout and eels form much of their diet in the breeding season on upland rivers, before they move to lowland lakes, flooded gravel pits and reservoirs for winter. Brown trout River-dwelling brown trout are usually various shades of brown, with a silver…

Anew initiative has been launched to secure the future of the curlew, one of England’s most iconic and threatened birds. The Curlew Recovery Partnership brings together all those with an interest in curlew conservation, including land managers, farmers, gamekeepers, policymakers and researchers. The initial aim of the partnership is to halt the decline of the curlew, whose numbers have fallen by about 50 per cent in the last 25 years, resulting in a population of just 58,000 breeding pairs across the UK. “The key factors driving the curlew’s demise are habitat loss through intensification of agriculture and predation pressure from the likes of crows and foxes,” said Samantha Franks from the British Trust for Ornithology, one of the partnership’s numerous member organisations. “Protecting curlew nests against predators, marking nests to…

FULLY-FUNCTIONAL, disembodied heads are the stuff of nightmares and science fiction. But they are also the stuff of proper zoological investigations, one of which featured recently in a gruesomely fascinating viral video. Filmed by biologists at Nara Women’s University, Japan, it shows a seaslug chewing off its entire body at the neck – heart, guts and all. The severed head then glides around its tank, grazing normally, before regenerating a whole new body within a matter of weeks. It’s an extreme case of autotomy – the self-inflicted removal of a body part – which, while not common, is widespread throughout the animal kingdom. Most famously, many lizards drop their tails to escape the clutches of predators, while sea cucumbers can startle assailants by ejecting their intestines explosively through their anus.…

The sun was getting low over Bardia National Park, Nepal. As wildlife photographer Emmanuel Rondeau and his guide made their way back to camp, they spotted a group of chital deer not far from the park’s border. Huddling tightly and casting furtive glances towards the undergrowth, the deer’s behaviour suggested they were not alone. But it was impossible to identify any potential threat in the metre-high grass. The guide pulled up next to a tree and began to climb. Emmanuel followed. Suddenly, the guide stopped in his tracks, and uttered the one word Emmanuel had hoped to hear since he’d started his quest five years previously: “Tiger!” It took a moment for Emmanuel to spot his quarry, perfectly camouflaged among grasses burnt yellow by the sun. It was his first…

Just off the rocky shore, several groups of people stand in hip-deep water, while a few dozen more float face down in the gentle swell. Get a little closer and the focus of their attention starts to become visible. Beneath the surface, countless alien-like creatures are moving in a slow, silent dance. These peculiar creatures are not aliens, of course, but Australian giant cuttlefish. From May to August each year, these spectacular cephalopods, which can reach almost 1m long, gather in their thousands in False Bay, a wide, shallow arc between Point Lowly and the town of Whyalla. The spot sits high inside Spencer Gulf on the coast of South Australia. The cuttlefish come here to spawn, but where they come from, and why they choose this spot, remains a…

“The presence of the wolf and a return to wilderness can be a great resource for sustainable tourism.” Who’s afraid of the big, bad wolf? Well, not Lorenzo Shoubridge, who actively sought out the canids while working on a photographic project in the Apuan Alps in northern Tuscany, Italy. “I found obvious traces of the passage of wolves on this path – of their predation and territorial marks,” he says. “So, I started to observe – first using small infrared camera-traps and then I installed a special camera-trap with a trigger sensor, to get the final shot.” These crepuscular canines, which can travel tens of kilometres in a single day, are notoriously elusive. An object of folkloric fear, they were persecuted across Europe. The last wild wolf in Britain was…

“To see a world in a grain of sand,” wrote poet William Blake, but what might our eyes be opened to in a drop of sea water? By using laboratory micropipettes and photographing specially lit water drops, a hidden world of tiny alien organisms is revealed. The magical creatures are plankton – the collection of microscopic plants (phytoplankton) and animals (zooplankton) that drift through the world’s waters, humbly providing the base for all marine life. This image was among the finalists in the Sony World Photography Awards 2021.…

1 | LIME HAWK-MOTH Along the avenue A real dandy, one of our best-looking moths, the lime hawk-moth launches on warm May evenings. Its distinctive scalloped wings and bold pattern that ranges from green to chestnut are quite a statement, but also make it harder to spot when resting among dappled leaves or against tree trunks during the day. Our love of avenues of limes and other trees along our streets brings the lime hawk-moth to the heart of urban areas, and it is common in parks and gardens. It is not the lime’s fragrant flowers that attract it – this moth doesn’t feed at all as an adult – but its heart-shaped leaves, on which the females lay their eggs. In the absence of lime, the moths will also…

In an age of clickbait and social media, it can be hard to distinguish fact from fiction. But it’s not just us humans who struggle with fake news. Animals, too, can be manipulated with a bit of cunning misinformation – a weakness that biologists in New Zealand have now exploited to protect rare nesting birds. Introduced predators such as ferrets, cats and hedgehogs can wreak havoc on New Zealand’s native plovers, oystercatchers and other ground-nesting birds. But a study led by Grant Norbury of Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research shows that the mammals can be fooled into ignoring them by spreading concoctions of bird pheromones around the nest sites in the weeks before the birds arrive. “Most mammals use olfaction to search for prey, and they have to constantly filter rewarding…

MYANMAR The Myanmar Government confirmed its place as a tiger country with a new minimum national number of 22 tigers, as well as recent evidence of tigers breeding in the wild. INDIA The 2018 census surveyed 381,400km² of forests for tiger signs and prey estimation, and set up 26,838 camera-traps across 141 sites. It estimated that there were 2,967 tigers, compared to the estimate of 2,226 in 2014. NEPAL showed a 19 per cent increase in tigers (235) in 2018, compared to the estimated figure of 198 in 2013. Bardia National Park has seen particular success: 12 years ago, only 18 tigers were counted there. Today, the official count is 87. BHUTAN The 2015 census, which estimated 103 tigers, found that the big cats were mostly distributed within the north-western,…

BIKINI ATOLL Marshall Islands The blast flash-boiled the water in the lagoon to 55,000°C. It was left a blighted underwater wasteland, devoid of life. The Bikini Atoll is a ring of coral islets encircling a turquoise lagoon that sits in the Pacific Ocean about 2,900km north-east of Papua New Guinea. It was used by the United States as a testing ground for nuclear weapons during the 1940s and 1950s – most notably for the Castle Bravo test in 1954, during which a thermonuclear device was detonated to produce an explosion more than 7,000 times the force of that dropped on Hiroshima. The blast gouged a crater more than 1.5km across and 80m deep, vaporised two islets and flash-boiled the water in the lagoon, which soared to temperatures of 55,000ºC. It…

Star photo Breakfast on the run I was in Hawaii when I snapped this gold dust day gecko with a moth in its mouth. Another gecko attempted to steal the moth away, and a chase ensued. The pair shot away in a blur of green, up one side of a shed and along the eaves until the first gecko was cornered. It then leapt from the edge of the shed to a nearby tree, at last getting to finish eating its prey. Jack Roney, California, USA 1 In the limelight I was searching for insects in my garden when I saw this spider sitting in the middle of a lime leaf. I shone my torchlight on it and took shots from underneath the leaf. Ganesh Palanivel, Tamil Nadu, India 2…

Having read the article on the proposed Natural History GCSE (Lessons for the future, April 2021), I offer the following thoughts. Regardless of which subject(s) a student wishes to pursue to exam level, all are given a grounding in reading, writing and arithmetic (the ‘three Rs’), geography, history and general science. These are the building blocks to choose from later. A more rounded educational background would be achieved if this were broadened to include ecology from the earliest possible opportunity. This is natural science and can be localised as nature studies. A patch of grass and heaps of stones or fallen wood offer a fantastic resource, so distance from ‘countryside’ need not inhibit the student. Nature is a fun subject, encompassing open air, observation, experimentation and research. It raises questions…