![]() ![]() ![]() This method encourages resistance to diseases, and over time 7 families have evolved to become the dominant strains. Eventually, their daughter Julie identified the beast from an insect field guide, and their son Robert managed to get pictures of the big bee.That means that with a human population of 8 billion, the number of bees in the world is easily over 2 trillion, and growing.Įven though there is just one queen bee per hive, she has the reproductive capability of laying, just in that one hive, about 200,000 bees a year.īecause bees are classed as monophyletic, meaning all of the different species have one common ancestor, she mates with several different genetic males to add diversity to the colony as has been the system throughout the centuries. To their astonishment, Mr and Mrs Walton first noticed several of the bees buzzing around the dahlias in their large wildlife-friendly garden (hedgehogs, rabbits, foxes) last July later they realised the bees had made a nest in the dead apple tree. Until last year, perhaps the most spectacular insect new arrival was the sickle-bearing bush cricket, Phaneroptera falcata, a large green grasshopper-relative which turned up last summer in Hastings Country Park, breeding on rosebay willowherb.īut now we have the violet carpenter bee to top the lot. Several new dragonfly and damselfly species have been found breeding in Britain in the past 10 years, ranging from the small red-eyed damselfly Erythromma viridulum first recorded in the UK in Essex in 1999, and now breeding as far north as the Midlands, to the lesser emperor dragonfly Anax parthenope, usually thought of as a Mediterranean species, first recorded in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, in 1996. Clouded yellows are now surviving the cold months as caterpillars and the larvae have been found on the undercliffs at Bournemouth - one of the country's warmest spots. The fact that red admirals are now surviving the winter (as adults) is the reason so many of them are being seen in early spring. Two butterfly species, once annual migrants from Europe, have also started overwintering in Britain and can thus now be considered resident species - the red admiral Vanessa atalanta and the clouded yellow Colias croceus. "You couldn't miss the hummingbird hawk moths last summer," Peter Marren remarks. Last year, thousands were visible right across the country, as far north as Scotland. ![]() These moths have always visited Britain but now they are overwintering as adults and successfully breeding here. Most are perfectly benign (with their curious names, such as Clancy's rustic or Langmaid's yellow underwing) but one species in particular, the horse chestnut leaf-miner moth Cameraria ohridella, first recorded in Wimbledon in 2002, has now attacked conker trees all across southern England, making their leaves appear brown and wilted in summer.Ī much more attractive moth occurrence has been the increase in numbers of the charming hummingbird hawk-moth Macroglossum stellatarum, which does indeed move in and out of flowers, seeking nectar, just like a hummingbird. The charity Butterfly Conservation has been tracking the new moths arriving in Britain it reckons we have been getting about one new species a year from the Continent for the past decade. The situation is similar with lepidoptera (moths and butterflies). ![]()
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