Biology Newsletter - Issue 18

Biology Department Newsletter Issue 18: First half of Summer term, 2021

‘Springwatch’ is back Your three week daily fix of wildlife stories from around the country is back on your screens on 25th May. Tune in every night Tuesday-Friday at 8pm on BBC2 to see the fabulous four bringing you the joy and wonder of the British countryside.

‘30 Days Wild’ Can you do one wild thing a day for the whole of the month of June?

Join thousands of people taking part in the UK’s month-long nature challenge organised by The Wildlife Trusts. June is a magical time to explore the outdoors, and by taking part you will become closer to nature. Whether you do one day or all 30, there are tonnes of options to keep you interested and motivated throughout the month. Find out more about the challenge here.

Don’t forget to send us your pictures of your #randomactsofwildness

‘Women for Bees’ We do love a bee in the Biology department and we have written many times in our newsletter about the importance of looking after our stripey friends, along with all the other pollinators.

Now, none other than Angelina Jolie has teamed up with UNESCO and Guerlain on the ‘Women for Bees’ initiative aimed at building and restocking thousands of bee hives around the world with 125 million bees by 2025! They will also be responsible for training and supporting 50 women beekeepers. Angelina will be involved in the projects twin objectives of women’s empowerment and biodiversity conservation and sustainable use. Find out more here.

As always, there’s loads of ways that you yourself can get involved with helping the plight of the pollinators. You could build a bee hotel or plant some bee-friendly flowers in your garden. Also, always remember to be respectful of these little creatures, and treat bees with care and consideration.

Biology Department Newsletter Issue 18: First half of Summer term, 2021

‘The Science of HabsDash’ with Mr Brotherston If you want to be a runner, the good news is it’s in your DNA. In his seminal book Born to Run, Chris McDougal, a journalist and passionate amateur runner, argues that evolution turned us into runners, and that running, or to be more precise, long distance running, was all we had. We evolved glutes, small waists, Achilles tendons and shorter toes all to maximise our running potential.

McDougal asserts that two million years ago our brains exploded in size and that a lot of that growth came from a diet which included proteins from animal meat and as humans only start killing their prey with rocks and spears approximately 200,000 years ago we’re left with an interesting conundrum. We couldn’t develop the brains to create the necessary hunting tools, until our brains grew from the protein-rich diet we would get from eating the animals that we didn’t have the tools to catch.

As humans, we are not very strong; we can’t climb very well; we don’t swim very well; we can’t fly and we have no fangs or claws. So how did we catch our prey? Well, one advantage we have in the wilderness over other animals is that we can sweat.

Better than any other mammal on Earth in fact. You might not realise it, but sweating is our species’ superpower, and it provides us with a natural cooling system that other animals just don’t possess. And thus, the theory goes, that before the development of hunting tools, our ancestors used this ability to chase their prey.

When it comes to running under hot heat for long distances, we're the best on the planet. You take a horse on a hot day, and after about five or six miles, that horse has a choice. It's either going to breathe, or it's going to cool off, but it can’t do both. We can. It makes you think. What if we evolved as hunting-pack animals? What if the only natural advantage we had in the world was the fact that we could get together as a group, go out there on an African savanna, pick out an antelope, and as a pack run it to exhaustion?

So, the next time you’re lining up for HabsDash, remember that the greatest endurance runner in the world is a human being and that your ability to sweat has in fact taken the species to the top of the food chain. There may no longer be the need to chase down an antelope, but you have the chance to chase down a new PB, a House Party, or maybe even a Golden Goat, whilst you’re at it.

Happy running!

Biology Department Newsletter Issue 18: First half of Summer term, 2021

‘Spring or Summer watch*?’ with Mr Coleman Whatever weather the seasons bring, nature is still out there enduring the hostile elements and adverse effects of mankind and yet still, hopefully surviving another year and maybe, just maybe, even thriving.

Last Spring was like no other in so many ways but the warm and sunny conditions were conducive to lots of species, including ourselves. This year so far, it has yet to really warm up and so the serious business of reproduction has been temporarily postponed. With fewer plants flowering and trees in leaf, there is less insect life and therefore, less visible birdlife about at the moment.

These ecological relationships underline one of the key principles in ecology, interdependence, ie. how different organisms are dependent on each other.

Hopefully, it will not be long now until we can see some more of our summer visitors like swifts swooping and screeching in the summer skies for mayflies.

Bird of the Month – The Swift, Apus apus

Swifts spend most of their lives flying – eating, drinking, mating and even sleeping on the wing!

Black all over with a small, pale patch on the throat they look a bit like a boomerang when in the air and can often be spotted in groups wheeling over roofs and calling to each other with high-pitched screams as they feast on small flying insects. There are around 100 different species of swift in the world. Only one, the common swift, nests in the UK. Their closest living relatives in the bird world are the hummingbirds.

Everything about swifts can be described with superlatives. They’re the fastest bird in level flight at 69.3mph and they make an epic journey of over 6000 miles twice a year between Europe and sub-Saharan Africa. They don’t stay in one place for long though as they are constantly searching for food. In fact, the feet of a swift that’s just left its nest may not touch solid ground for two or even three years before it returns to our shores to make a nest of its own – incredible stuff!

*in meteorological terms, Summer starts on June 1 st but astronomically speaking, it started on the Summer solstice, June 21st. Of course, the natural world does not recognise these specific dates and nature is always waiting for you to get outside and notice it!

Biology Department Newsletter Issue 18: First half of Summer term, 2021

‘Spring or Summer watch*?’ with Mr Coleman Sadly, the swift population here has halved in just twenty years, the main reason being the loss of nesting sites.

Modern houses just don’t have the holes under the eaves that they have become accustomed to using. Swifts like to use the same place year after year; they just don’t have time and energy to search for a new nest site after their long-distance flight.

One of the best ways to help is to install a special swift box as these birds happily live alongside people. You could even make one – detailed instructions are on the RSPB website.

Finally, if you’ve been lucky enough to see any swifts then you can record your sightings on the SwiftMapper website so that we can continue to monitor the current UK population and best support this amazing little migratory bird.

Courtesy of BBC Springwatch, have you seen/heard/smelt any of the signs of the season below?

Hawthorn blossom

Otherwise known as “May tree” after the month in which it blooms, its green leaves are often the first to appear, heralding the spring, while the appearance of the blossom indicates summer is on its way. It’s a common species, often found in hedgerows, woodland, and scrub, but not to be confused with the blackthorn tree, whose flowers bloom early followed by their leaves. Common hawthorn is a hit with the wildlife, supporting more than 300 insect species, providing excellent shelter for birds, and dormice like to munch on its blossom.

Bumblebee on blossom Big queen bumblebees are the earliest bumblebees you are likely to see on blossom trees, making a quick dash from her hibernation spot underground to the blossom to gain some energy before searching for a suitable nest site to start her colony.

Biology Department Newsletter Issue 18: First half of Summer term, 2021

‘Spring or Summer watch*?’ with Mr Coleman Wild orchids

Later in the season, the blossom will begin to become busy with worker bees gathering pollen and nectar to feed the youngest of the colony. Bumblebees are too busy looking for and gathering pollen to worry about humans and will not sting unless they feel threatened.

Skylark displays

Skylarks can be found all over the UK, preferring open countryside, from farmland to moorland. They can be hard to spot on the ground, but they have a distinctive song and display flight, shooting vertically up into the air. Skylarks are larger than sparrows, but smaller than starlings, brown in colour but with white edges to their wings. They have crests on the top of their heads which they can raise when they are excited or alarmed.

Many people forget that orchids exist outside our homes here in the wild spaces of the UK. Orchids can be seen in flower throughout the UK from April to September.

You may have to look with fresh eyes as orchids can be masters of disguise, matching their flowers to look like their pollinators, or you can even try looking with your nose, as orchids can be beautifully fragrant or terribly smelly depending on the species! The common spotted-orchid is the orchid you’re most likely to see as it's widespread across many habitats in the UK but the early purple orchid (pictured above) is in bloom now.

Slow worms

Often mistaken for a snake, the slow worm is actually a legless lizard. They can be found in heathland, tussocky grassland, and woodland edges, as long as there is plenty of sunshine and insects to eat.

Biology Department Newsletter Issue 18: First half of Summer term, 2021

‘Spring or Summer watch*?’ with Mr Coleman May is mating season for slow worms, so look out for males behaving aggressively towards each other and the intertwining courtship dance between a male and female which can last for up to 10 hours!

Mr Coleman’s Big Butterfly Challenge

Oil beetles – tricky to spot!

Pearl-bordered Fritillary (male)

You won’t have to leave the beaten path for this Spring Watchlist species. The place you’re most likely to spot the conspicuous oil beetle is on a footpath, since they seek out bare ground in which to dig nest burrows. Oil beetles have an extraordinary lifecycle, similar to that of the cuckoo bird, except the nests they infiltrate are those of solitary bees. Though the most likely place you’ll see them is a footpath, it doesn’t mean you are likely to see them. There are 11 UK species of oil beetle and all of them are in serious decline, due to having such a specialised lifecycle tied to another seriously declining group of species, the bees, and habitat loss. If you are lucky enough to spot a beetle, make sure you report it to the National Oil Beetle Recording Scheme.

I absolutely love butterflies and I’ll tell you why… They don’t make an annoying noise, they don’t sting, they are important pollinators and of course, they are stunningly beautiful. It’s almost as if they have been put on this planet for our pleasure (if you believe in that sort of thing).

Did you know that there are 59 species of butterfly found in the British Isles (57 resident and 2 migrants: the Painted Lady and the Clouded Yellow).

Now I haven’t seen half of them but I think that 59 is a manageable number amongst us all and that is my challenge to you…

Next term, I want you to take a photo of any butterflies that you see and send them to me in all their multi-coloured magnificence.

Orange-Tip (male) Anthocharis cardamines

Biology Department Newsletter Issue 18: First half of Summer term, 2021

‘Spring or Summer watch*?’ with Mr Coleman Top tips: 1.

2.

3.

Get close but not too close. Let the butterfly land near you, don’t chase them – you will lose!

Try to take photo of the wings unfurled as this is the best way to identify them.

Use the search criteria and A-Z on this website https://butterflyconservation.org/butterflies/identify -a-butterfly

The weather hasn't been very kind for butterflies or butterfly spotters for that matter but that is all part of the challenge. To count as a sighting, butterflies must be seen outside and be active (i.e. not in hibernation). Next term, there will an assembly and some more resources for tutor groups to take part – please do join in. MC.

Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui)

Peacock (Aglais io)

‘Galivanting Gauntlett: Human Impacts’ with Mr Gauntlett In September 2019, as the school year was getting under way, I found myself not drowning under a pile of marking but exploring the far North East of Uzbekistan. I was in a dusty, dead-beat town called Muynak and I’d come in search of an unusual sight which I now found myself surveying from atop a small cliff.

It was hot. The sky was a hazy pale blue, and the sun was beating down with some intensity. As I looked out to the horizon all I could see was a barren, sandy landscape interspersed with woody scrub. Casting my eye further down however, I caught a glimpse of what I’d come to see, boats, in the desert. About a dozen of them, some of them quite large. Not something you see every day.

Biology Department Newsletter Issue 17: Second half of Spring term, 2021

‘Galivanting Gauntlett: Human Impacts’ with Mr Gauntlett Of course, these boats didn’t spontaneously appear, nor were they transported hundreds of miles here to be dumped. They were left behind. They were the result of one of the worst environmental disasters of the 20th Century. Muynak had in fact once been a bustling port with a thriving fishing industry and only a few decades ago where I was now standing was in fact the edge of Aral Sea, formerly the second largest inland lake in the world. In 1960 the Aral sea covered an area more than half the size of England but as of today, only about 5% of it remains. The scale is quite hard to get your head around.

So, what happened? Humans. In the 1960’s the Soviet government embarked on irrigation projects diverting the rivers that fed the lake.

This was to supply a burgeoning cotton industry which made Uzbekistan the largest exporter in the world. In the space of just a few decades this enormous lake had all but gone with a loss of more than 20,000 square miles of marine habitat, home to a number of endemic species.

I spent some time wandering amongst the rusted old fishing fleet. It was a spooky reminder of their former life. Where shoals of fish once swam, now just a few lizards scampered about on the sand. I found what I think was toad-headed agama, although I’d gladly stand corrected.

Toad-headed agama

We tend to think that these large-scale human impacts on the environment are a relatively recent phenomena, whether it’s the widespread effects of climate change or deforestation. The truth is however, that humans have been altering the environment and transforming landscapes since before the history books began, in fact long before agriculture or civilisation arrived.

It’s likely that early humans were responsible for the mass extinction of the most of the world’s megafauna between 10,000 and 50,000 years ago. Giant beasts used to be a common thing. Wooly Mammoths, Armadillos the size of a car and Giant Sloths as tall as a double decker bus are just a few examples. As Homo sapiens spread out from Africa, these giants slowly disappeared.

Biology Department Newsletter Issue 17: Second half of Spring term, 2021

‘Galivanting Gauntlett: Human Impacts’ with Mr Gauntlett Deforestation has been taking place on a huge scale globally for hundreds, more likely thousands of years and large areas of wetland have been drained to make way for agriculture. The United Kingdom for example would have once been largely covered in forests and had big expanses of wetland, both unique ecosystems.

Giant ground sloth, Methatherium

Alexander von Humbolt

Alexander von Humbolt (the world’s first and arguably greatest naturalist) wrote about the devasting effects of deforestation in South America when he travelled there in 1799. He witnessed widespread clear felling of trees to make way for plantations, something that continues there to this day. He noticed how the levels of lake Valencia in Venezuela had dropped significantly as a result. In fact, he was the first person to develop the idea of human-induced climate change. His books, and writings on these matters were widely read at the time, and generations of naturalists that followed also wrote about these issues.

These are not new ideas, but it seems they were largely forgotten.

Today, our impact on the world around us remains a pressing issue, but the scale and speed at which we’re changing the environment are unprecedented. There is much to worry about, but also reasons to be optimistic.

We are understanding more and more about the interconnectedness of life. For example, we now know that many of the insects we once gave little thought to, are pollinators for our food crops and are vital to maintaining global food supplies. And as we learn more, and people have a greater understanding of the impacts of our actions, the impetus for change grows. In this Aral sea, 1989 vs 2014 country, new habitats are now being created, not destroyed, large scale rewilding projects are under way and people are starting to ‘garden for wildlife’. Attitudes are changing. This approach might not be being adopted globally yet but you have to start somewhere. So what will you do to make a change?

Biology Department Newsletter Issue 18: First half of Summer term, 2021

‘How animals sleep’ with Mr Glanville The following is abridged from a National Geographic article Sleep is still a great mystery to scientists. We know that we need it but not why.

Humans and great apes, including chimpanzees and gorillas, sleep in one long intervals during a 24-hour period. This is probably because they build sleeping platforms in trees that make them safe from predators. Other primates and most other mammals sleep with several alternating periods of sleep and activity in a 24-hour cycle.

Dolphins stay awake with half of their brain whilst the other half sleeps. They are alert for 24 hours every day of their life. They can sleep with one eye open and keep a lookout for predators, because they don’t have muscle paralysis that is present in REM sleep and so can swim constantly. Some birds, including swifts and frigate birds, also sleep with one half of the brain at a time and this enables them to fly for 24 hours. In the case of swifts, they can spend up to three years in the air without ever landing.

Fruit flies are often used to study sleep. They can sleep for 12 hours in the dark and, if sleep-deprived, they sleep for longer in the next sleep cycle. If they are deprived of sleep, they cannot learn tasks as easily and have reduced reproductive drive and success.

If you are interested in learning more, read ‘Why we sleep’

by Matthew Walker. From the book: ‘Routinely sleeping less than six or seven hours a night demolishes your immune system, more than doubling your risk of cancer. Insufficient sleep is a key lifestyle factor determining whether or not you will develop Alzheimer’s disease. Inadequate sleep - even moderate reduction for just one week - disrupts blood sugar levels so profoundly that it would be classified as pre-diabetic. Short sleeping increases the likelihood of our coronary arteries becoming blocked.’

Biology Department Newsletter Issue 17: Second half of Spring term, 2021

‘Biology in the News’ with Mrs Oatridge Meet the birds who are famous on Instagram!

Once designated “the world’s most unfortunate-looking bird”, the frogmouth has recently risen to new prominence as the “most Instagrammable bird” in the world. The dishelleved avian, found across Australasia was awarded its new title following the analysis of nearly 28,000 bird photos from nine wildlife photography accounts on Instagram. The scientists who conducted the research were themselves surprised by its findings: "It just does not look like any other bird with its almost anthropomorphic facial features," said lead researcher Katja Thommes, from the University of Konstanz. However, Instagram likes do not denote beauty says wildlife photographer Graeme Purdy "Anything cute and cuddly evokes something in human nature - and particularly anything with big eyes,"

Did tyrannosaurs hunt in packs?

For a long time, scientists have debated whether tyrannosaurs hunted in groups. Now researchers in Utah have published the strongest evidence yet. The theory of pack-hunting was based on the discovery of numerous tyrannosaur bones at a site in Utah in 2014. While many assumed these had been simply washed up here from various locations, recent physical and chemical analysis has shown that they were all members of the same genus- Teratophoneus who died together, most likely from a flood. “A very sad day in southern Utah 76.4 million years ago” could now show us that the behaviour of the tyrannosaurs was more ‘wolf-like’ than we imagined.

Biology Department Newsletter Issue 17: Second half of Spring term, 2021

‘Conundrum: How did a smooth female newt find it’s way into MuA in the Seldon? ’ with Mrs Shiradski Every day we have the absolute joy of walking through the beautiful grounds of Haberdasher’s as we watch the landscape change with the seasons. This half term the year 8 pupils have spent time looking for and identifying invertebrates amongst the undergrowth of the woodland, in addition to water from ponds and rivers.

Some boys were extremely fortunate to discover a nest of newts sheltering under a log which is where they tend to spend the day being nocturnal animals and where they overwinter.

The smooth newt or common newt, Lissotriton vulgari, is an amphibian and is found in and around ponds throughout the UK where they feed on tadpoles, water snails and small crustaceans. On land they eat insects, caterpillars, slugs and worms. They are identifiable by their olive green or plane brown body with regular black spots along their back and an orange belly. When fully grown they are approximately 10cm in length with the females being slightly smaller than males. Spring heralds the breeding season when the males develop a wavy crest along the length of their bodies and fringes on the edges of their hind toes. The male will entice the females with the smell of his glandular secretions and put on an elaborate courtship display. The male will deposit a packet of sperm (spermatophore) near the female which she collects. Approximately a week later she will lay up to 300 eggs, attaching them individually to pond vegetation. Larvae (newt tadpoles) hatch at approximately two to four weeks later and are identifiable by their external feathery gills around the head. The larvae take about 10 weeks to metamorphose into air breathing juveniles, with their front legs emerging first followed by their back legs. Once they have absorbed their gills they can leave the water as newtlets moving on to land.

The smooth newt in MuA had clearly lost it’s way to the water from where it was sheltering in the undergrowth of the flowerbeds around the stream! It has now been placed near the water in the hope it’ll be safe from the footfall of the school community!