Dogged Nature

Comments(3)

Friends around London have reported a sudden infestation of ladybirds in their rooms. Springtime is here, and so are the Harlequins. This one was crawling all over my notes, before I took it out and dumped it on a grass patch outside.

“Since the arrival of the harlequin ladybird it has never been more important to monitor ladybirds.”

Source: Natural History Museum news (archived from 2005, but still as relevant as ever)

“Britain’s best-loved beetle, the ladybird, is under threat from the world’s most invasive ladybird species - the harlequin ladybird (Harmonia axyridis).

An extremely voracious predator, the harlequin ladybird easily out-competes native ladybirds for its preferred food of green fly and scale insects. When these food sources are scarce they readily prey on native ladybirds and other insects such as butterfly eggs, caterpillars and lacewing larvae.

The harlequin ladybird was introduced to North America from Asia to control plant pests and, 20 years later, has become North America’s commonest ladybird. First spotted in the UK in September 2004, sightings have mainly been confined to the south east of Britain.”

Its distribution map shows London and its surrounds as hotspots. The The Harlequin Ladybird survey homepage has some pretty useful ID info and details on how to submit sighting records. So Londoners - start taking note of how many spots your ladies have!

Comments(0)

There’s so much I’m thinking and would like to say but I lack the energy to gather my thoughts and pen them down. Besides, others far more well-grounded in the situation have already spoken. I can only echo their opinions.

Full coverage on wildsingapore.com.

I remain highly skeptical and I do have my reservations. I support the notion that we should put our techonologies and knowledge to the test, but it should NOT be done at the expense of our fragile reefs, at least, not in the field and not at P. Hantu. Say, can’t trials be held first, and elsewhere? Forget the commercial incentives for the time being. If they can’t then this is, like what others say, businesses just seeing cha-ching-ing opportunities in taking advantage of our marine areas.

Not that the rest of us demand that the project be halted completely, but they shouldn’t even think of starting work on it when they haven’t fully done their research and laid out their plans proper. As things appear, they have not thought of what exactly will happen and what or how they are going to do it. And what surprises me even more is how a few prominent individuals - scientists and conservationists - are so strongly backing this project. The S’pore Environment Council and Nature Society are supporters as well, no less. If they really see the benefits of this, then I say to them: convince us. They are failing miserably in this aspect, for the reasoning against Project NOAH is overwhelming.

From the press release:

My first thought (very frankly) was… what a load of crap. For many of the points.

——————-
While we’re on the subject matter, have a look at some really cool scenes of coral spawning at the waters of the Raffles Lighthouse.

Comments(0)

“The number of bird species in London declines from 77 in the outer suburbs to 50 in the inner and 43 in the city centre.” (Pullin, 2002)

Species richness in urban areas declines towards the city centre, but I never knew what the figures were.

Comments(0)