Beasties in the grass

On the 22nd of May, Trinity held its first BioBlitz day where members of the public and all nature enthusiasts alike were invited to see what little beasties they could find around the campus. We decided then to get our own trusty field books and cameras out to see what lurks just outside our department doors!

The most obvious animals to find around the campus are the numerous bird species, including many small passerines that set up territories in the trees outside the department such as this robin and blue tit.

Blue tit
Blue tit
Robin_1
Robin

The birds around campus seem to like to follow the lunchtime behaviour of us humans, such as these blackbirds.

Female Balckbird
Blackbird

However there are lots of tasty invertebrates around the various sports grounds.

Mistle Thrush
Mistle Thrush
Starlings with grubs
Starlings

We confined ourselves to the long grass, however, in our search for inverts finding the usual suspects such as aphids, spiders, Drosophila and ladybirds.

aphids
Aphids
Spirling
Garden Spider
Fly
Drosophila
Ladybird
Two spotted ladybird

We also found nymph froghoppers, a Hemipteran (True Bug) that protects and shields itself by producing a mass of foam.

Cookcoo spit
Froghopper foam

Despite the large amount of non native plants on campus, such as poppies and orchids, pollinators still manage to squeeze out a living on campus as demonstrated by the presence of a seemingly social group of solitary Andrena bees beside the cricket pitch.

Poppy
Poppy
Orchid
Legume
Soliatry Bee sp.
Andrena spp

Finally we searched in what we thought was a lifeless stagnant pond in the back of the department only to find it teeming with daphnia, gammarus and hoglouse.

Pond
Department pond
Daphnia and Hoglouse
Daphnia and Hoglouse

So even in the centre of Dublin a closer look at biodiversity can often surprise you!

Author

Kevin Healy: healyke[at]tcd.ie

Photo credit

The Zoology Department BioBlitz Team

We need Tarzan to fill the gaps!

Tarzan_of_the_Apes_in_color

Nature News published a new post about our origins. It’s promoting Stevens et al’s 2013 paper that published the description from two new granddads/grandmas in our already complicated family tree. These guys, Nsungwepithecus and Rukwapithecus (it’s not that hard to pronounce, try it) are considered by Stevens and his team as the oldest crown Catarrhines – [Google translate palaeo-primatish to English: “as closely related as the ancestors of you and your cousin the proboscis monkey (we all knew there were some facial similarities!)”]. Technically speaking, these fossil discoveries pushed the origin of modern Catarrhines back from 20 to 25 million years ago, a date which is closer to molecular results (25-30 mya). Astonishing eh? Well it is for me but there’s another reason why I wanted to talk about this paper: gaps.

As many people might know, the fossil record contains some serious lacunas; thick layers of rock containing either very few or no fossils at all. One example mentioned in this paper is the scarcity of fossils from the Oligocene period; very few bones for palaeontologists to gnaw… The Oligocene was, however, a period of massive changes, in climate and all that stuff but also the time when placental mammals evolved from their primitive to modern forms. So the lack of fossils from this time is always frustrating when you want to understand macro-evolutionary patterns. But why have we found so few Oligocene fossils until now? Of the many explanations Stevens et al. suggest that “Possible reasons […] include limited deposits of appropriate age, particularly […] below the equator, complicated by densely vegetated topography in more tropical environments”. And that’s why I find this article so exciting! Traditionally, fossil primates were excavated in deserts or northern latitudes, which is typically where they are fairly rare nowadays! Therefore, I’m happy to see that there is a true effort being made to look for fossils in biodiversity hotspots such as Tarzan’s neighborhood (or the Tanzanian Rukwa Rift Valley in this paper) where these new primates were discovered.

I think one of the most important things to come from this paper is that it’s proof of a real effort to look for the fossils in the true biodiversity hotspots which, I’m sure will lead to far better comprehension of modern mammalian history. These new primates came from Africa but people are also working in Peruvian jungle and interesting new discoveries are not limited to just primates…

Author

Thomas Guillerme: guillert@tcd.ie

Photo credit

wikimedia commons

Let the games begin!

Modern-Knight

 

We the blog declare that a month of games will commence from tomorrow. The aim is to achieve the most hits for a blog post in a day. The prize will be worth that of a King’s Ransom and will be revealed in good time. Cry havoc, and let slip the blogs of war!

Scribe

Adam Kane: kanead[at]tcd.ie

Photo credit

wikimedia commons

 

 

 

 

A Christmas Story…

As the festive season draws upon us, Pope Benedict XVI is attracting increasing attention in the international press. Today (12th December) is scheduled to see the first tweet issued by the pontiff, a message which is predicted to reach at least 1 million followers; a remarkable number which fades in comparison to the 32 million people following Lady Gaga – what does that say about modern society?

Aside from his increasing social media presence, Pope Benedict has also been at the centre of a media storm which accused him of “banning Christmas”. The article was in response to the pontiff’s latest book, “The Infancy Narratives-Jesus of Nazareth” in which he re-evaluates evidence for aspects of the Christmas story. He commented that there was no historical record of angels singing carols and also no account of animals being present in the manger, statements which were easy fodder for attention-grabbing headlines. However, these sensationalist accounts were gross misrepresentations of what the Pope actually said and prompted a Christian news blog to release a re-assuring statement that the pontiff did not ban Christmas!

Aside from the worrying evidence of just how easily “news” can be fabricated and misconstrued, what attracted me to this story was the importance of animals in the Christmas tradition. The idea that seemed to upset people the most was the suggestion that a donkey and an ox might be removed from nativity scenes for ever more (which would undoubtedly alleviate some of the stresses associated with home-made nativity costumes!). This outcry is a reminder of our need to feel connected with animals and the natural world in general; E.O Wilson’s concept of biophilia. The presence of animals in the manger seems to be associated with some of the comforting qualities which contribute to the ever-expanding success of animal assisted therapies. Positive effects of human-animal interactions permeate all aspects of our society, from religious traditions to promoting a general sense of health and well-being in our daily lives. Some evidence even suggests that pet ownership may be correlated with longer life spans!

Rest-assured, therefore, the Pope did not in fact “ban Christmas” and both a donkey and an ox feature in the nativity scene in St. Peter’s Square.  I guess this means that there will be more proud parents of “donkey number 1” swelling the audience ranks of nativity plays for many years to come!

 

Author

Sive Finlay: sfinlay[at]tcd.ie

Photo credit

Wikimedia commons

Biodiversity in Our Lives

It’s worthwhile highlighting the recent success of the “Biodiversity in Our Lives” campaign which has generated some notable publicity this week in Science. PhD students here at Trinity College decided to impress upon the public some facts about biodiversity and how it can impact our lives, often in surprising ways. To do this they decided to create a series of beermats which have succinct descriptions of these impacts. Pubs around Dublin have received a second round of the beermats and to coincide with this many of the students are giving pop up pub talks.

Author

Adam Kane: kanead[at]tcd.ie

Photo credit

Biodiversity in Our Lives