Terminology and etymology

I am looking for quiet things to do today, having been laid low with a germ all weekend and being required to find energy for the Dartmoor trip tomorrow. I thought you might like some encouragement about all the new terminology you may find yourself learning in your taxonomic-collecting quest.

I actually quite enjoy it. It's only when you start looking closely and afresh at beetles or ferns or whatever, that you see that they have all these Specific Bits. And it's the difference in form of these bits that allows you to distinguish one species from another. You may already have specialised language you use in some other realm which allows you to communicate with others with the same interest - perhaps about engines or knitting or rock climbing or whatever. So this is just another version of that - you're developing a new vocabulary you'll share with like-minded people and which will enable you to communicate clearly and specifically.

using Miika Silfverberg's CC fern photo

Earlier this year I was very, very lucky and was shown round the Botanical Gardens in Havana by one of its leading employees. My Spanish is shamefully non-existent (luckily his English was better). But our successful communication hinged on a shared vocabulary of botanical terminology. The scientific names of plants are of course international, but so (pretty much) are the botanical names of their constituent parts. So he could point out all the exotic and wonderful plants and their strange seed pods and so on, and I did much geeky botanical squealing of delight. It was very interesting. So doing this assignment could stand you in similar good stead when you go off globe-trotting.

Anyway. Whichever key you end up using it'll probably have a diagram of a generalised example of your chosen plant or animal, along with a glossary of the terms used, and when you start using the key you'll be referring to that quite a bit.

The terms aren't plucked out of the air of course; they're generally derived from relevant words in Latin, Greek and perhaps Arabic.

For example, take the fern in the picture above. The whole above-ground part is called a frond (meaning a leafy twig, in Latin - the way you might use 'frond' in everyday language). The 'laminar' means a very thin plate, and 'stipe' means stalk. The parts of the blade mean sensible though more specific things too - 'rachis' is Greek for spine (and it runs down the centre of the blade giving it support) and 'pinna' is Latin for feather, echoing the way a feather is divided up. The midrib of the pinna is a 'costa': it means rib in Latin (it's not like the Spanish 'coast' of Costa Coffee... but I'm guessing there's a connection somewhere). If you fancy looking into more botanical terms this is pretty good, and for derivations of entomological words you could look at this; and I've found this one which has quite a few names for fungi and lichens (yes they're dusty archaic tomes but etymology fortunately doesn't often change). This recent book is good for botanical names.

A crab on its back (1888)  painted by Vincent Van Gogh.

I remember seeing this painting in the flesh and being really blown away by it (it doesn't reproduce on the internet so well but that's not a bad thing). I hope Mr Van Gogh wouldn't mind his excellent observational skills being commandeered to show the parts of a crab's cheliped. You're going to have to invoke your own skills to figure out what's referred to by the keys you use. I'm sure the person marking your work would also appreciate some nice clear diagrams to illustrate your understanding.

Should you wish to know - cheliped comes from the Greek for claw (chele) and Latin for foot (pedis). Dactylus derives from the Greek for 'finger'; propodus = fore foot; carpus = Latin for 'wrist' (think carpal tunnel syndrome); and merus derives from the Greek for a body part, a thigh. Finally, coxa is the Latin for hip.

I think it's interesting to find out the derivation of the names, and sometimes it can make them stick in your head.

For aspiring coleopterists

From Janson's British Beetles

After the frustrations of yesterdays spiders I found myself longing for the soothing world of beetles. A beetle on a pin is much easier to spin round to different angles for close inspection, than a spider lounging in a dish of alcohol.

As with a few of the other collection options, you might wish that you'd been able to get out in the summer to find beetles. But although many species are most active then, you'll also be able to find specimens over the winter and into the early spring. Instead of looking on flowers, you'll have to think of other habitats.

Darwin, as I mentioned before, was a keen beetle fan. Here you can read that he was always searching for new collecting methods. He wrote:

"I was very successful in collecting and inventing two new methods; I employed a labourer to scrape during the winter, moss off old trees and place it in a large bag, and likewise to collect the rubbish at the bottom of the barges in which reeds are brought from the fens, and thus I got some very rare species."

 You might not have your own labourer to help you, but you could certainly try shaking moss over a tray. I fear fen barges with reeds might be a thing of the past, but any pile of vegetation should be worth a look.  Similarly vintage advice suggests

"In the winter, very many beetles can be obtained by cutting isolated tufts of grass, pulling moss, etc., and shaking them over brown paper; the proceeds need not be examined on the spot, but can be taken home in a bag and carefully investigated indoors at leisure. In this way, by a judicious selection of likely-looking spots, a few hours' work out of doors will often furnish occupation for several evenings.

In the autumn, examining fungi and puff-balls, and sweeping among dead leaves under trees are very productive; and later still, the leaves (especially the black, damp, bottom layers) may be sifted or shaken over the brown paper with great results. 

Lycoperdina bovistae is found in association with Lycoperdon puffballs. ('Lycoperdon' means wolf fart. It really does).  PD image.

 On the sea-shore, heaps of decaying seaweed harbour many species, and dead fish or birds become capital traps; but a "keeper's tree" in a wood, with dead vermin nailed to it, is the luckiest thing to find.

Many species come to the running sap of the stumps of felled trees, and a great number haunt the wet burrows of the Goat Moth in the solid wood, whilst ants' nests, both in woods, tree trunks, and sandy places, produce an enormous number both of specimens and species, many of them being very rare.

Tapping rotten twigs and sticks, and shaking the damp bottom layers of grass and rubbish heaps and hay-stacks, will produce many species in profusion."

Naturally I am not suggesting that you go out and decimate the landscape and destroy all its trees, fungi and ants nests. And you might not feel like poking about in decaying animals. But the options are there (given you have permission to collect from the owner of the land and you're not taking something protected, natch). A couple of years ago a student submitted an excellent beetle collection, many specimens of which had come from dead wood. If you can look in different habitats you will find different species, so be hopeful and imaginative.

Interesting shape 'galleries' eaten by a larval Scolytinae beetle. CC Bernard Dupont

Spider headaches

from Wikimedia Commons

 Yesterday, enthusiastic and determined student A came to examine her spider specimens under the microscope. I was feeling alright about being able to help, having done a little bit before, and having taken useful things in on a day course with people who actually knew what they were doing.

But it didn't really work out as planned. And that was because I insisted on throwing us into the dichotomous key. And then we just ended up drowning in the not-exactly-beginner-friendly language. I'm not saying the key is rubbish, that would be unfair. But it's not an encouraging way for the beginner because you have to wade through a lot that would seem obvious to the expert, but is very draining (and largely irrelevant) to the beginner. Astoundingly, student A kept awake and motivated. I however was desperate for a cup of tea and wanted to dash the petri dish across the room.

I just wanted to show that matching a specimen with photos on the internet is not good enough for spiders. Yet I didn't want to inflict such pain and confusion on a first time arachnologist. But there is a middle way. What we should have done (I think) was to draw / note down basic features of the spider, such as:

- The arrangement and number of its eyes (spiders have 6 or 8 in various sizes and configurations)

a spider sketch from my notebook

- The size of its body (in millimetres. You can borrow some vernier callipers from me, it might be easier than a ruler. Spider lengths are measured fom the front of the cephalothorax to the hind end of the abdomen - essentially, from its face to its bum. Not across their legs, although that can make for a scarier sounding distance).

A lovely banana spider from Florida (CC David Maiolo) and its length.

- Whether it had a web or not (and what form it takes if it does)

- Any unusual shape to the body or particular markings / colouration.

- Any differences in the length of the different pairs of legs, and the general air of stoutness / spindliness with regard to body vs leg size.

These are all simple things, and to be honest this must be how an expert will approach a new spider in their head. They're looking at the overall picture to begin with, not immediately delving down into the finer details. To be fair the key does do this a bit, because (to quote my tutor) it "gets rid of the bananas in the fruit bowl." That is to say, the key tries to get all the weird and obviously different species out the way first. But this feels like a struggle to the first-time user of the key, because they don't realise that this is what's happening. This is partly to do with a lack of illustrations, I think.

The rare Ladybird spider (Ereus Sandaliatus). CC Viridiflavus. A "banana in the fruitbowl."

Armed with the information in your notebook, you can narrow down a few possible families using the lateral key later on in Jones-Walters book. That shows you much more clearly what the differences in body shape, eyes, webs and so on are between the different families. It's not going to solve everything, but I think it's a good start. You can worry about the dichotomous family key when you've got confidence from the lateral one, and go on to look at them in detail in Collins, for example. There are lots of things you'll probably have to / want to get to grips with, like spinnerets and calamistrums and trichobothia and epigynes. But give yourself a break to start with.

Anyway. Spiders. So many people seem to want to do them this year (but curiously no-one last year). This is to warn you - they're not going to be particularly easy. But they are interesting and if you can invest a bit of time and effort I think it will pay off.

Spider encouragment update.
Student S came in this week, and she was able to identify several of her spiders in a few hours' determined studying. This was good. We did use the approach above, and once a likely family had been narrowed down, we turned to Collins. Then it was a matter of choosing between the species in that family - some are rare and some are not British, which is helpful, but then you can be left with several likely candidates. Luckily, Collins has excellent illustrations of the reproductive bits of male and female spiders, and the distinctive shape of these make you feel quite confident about picking one species over another. That's where the lovely microscopes make zooming in so easy (even if getting an angle without a leg in the way can be difficult).

Autumn Asteraceae

This morning I accompanied a classful of students out to the fields between the university and the MoD. I felt rather ancient because wherever I looked I was thinking "Ah, I remember when it was fields all round here" - but actually, that wasn't so very long ago, and it is sad that every area of greenery between Bristol and the motorways seems to be getting filled with tarmac and unimaginative architecture. But at least the grand plan for the stadium seems to have been shelved, and so there is still habitat for many creatures and plants. We even saw a couple of deer leaping away.

I was pleased to find five decently flowering members of the Asteraceae, and these would make a good start to a collection. Apologies for the hasty photographs. You will be able to make your specimens look much better than this.

This one's Bristly ox-tongue (Picris echioides). It's got the most superb and strange bristles that come out from little blistery bases. It looks pretty mean and is reasonably painful to pick up. You'd imagine it deters all but the most determined herbivore. It has many other interesting features which you could examine under a handlens. I think my next post will be encouragement to buy a handlens. You can admire the red-striped strapshaped yellow petals, and the fuzzy pappuses that carry away the surprisingly orange seeds on the wind.

Not everyone likes it: this Manual Of Weeds (of 1919, I love old books) has "descriptions of all of the most pernicious and troublesome plants in the United States and Canada." Pernicious and troublesome probably means it's very good at clinging on in all sorts of places and is supremely well adapted to grow quickly and set seed successfully. It's libellous surely.

This one is Common fleabane (Pulicaria dysenterica). 'Pulicaria' means to do with fleas (pulex is Latin for flea), and 'dysenterica' is because Linnaeus (who named the plant and about a million others - the binomial naming system is his invention) heard the plant was used to cure dysentery in Russian soldiers fighting in Persia. So there you go.

It's noticeably soft - the stem is covered in woolly hairs. They feel nice to me but they're probably there again to put off predators (perhaps tiny buggy predators rather than big mammalian ones).

I have other photos but as yet another work crisis is looming, I will just list them for now, and hopefully you will be inspired to go and find them yourself. Make sure you find one that's still in flower though, and not too sorry-looking.
Creeping thistle (Cirsium arvense)
Common ragwort (Senecio jacobaea)
and Smooth sow-thistle (Sonchus oleraceus).

Also on the way back to the office I found plenty of Groundsel (Senecio vulgaris) some Daisies Bellis perennis) and Dandelions (Taraxacum officinale). So that's eight species already! It's almost too easy (shhh).

So I'd say, if you want to collect something colourful and botanical, get out there now and have a look for some Asteraceae. Soon. They're very easy to preserve. They're quite easy to identify. And they have lots of interesting features that you can illustrate and talk about in your field notebook. The variation of fluffy pappuses, leaf shape, petal shape - there is much to investigate closely. It's an interesting family and there are lots of species out there.

Welcome, fledgling identifiers of 2017/18

CC image by Stu

I am, I admit, entirely biased - but surely this is the one of the best assignments you'll work on all year. Not only will you develop enviable new skills, but you'll have a perfectly legitimate excuse to go for walks in the countryside whilst feeling guiltless that you're not slaving over an essay like your pitiful housemates.

There are many options to choose from, so you can pick something:
 - you'll find personally interesting and motivating to learn about,
- which suits your talents (for example, some things are physically fiddlier than others, some require a love for learning new terminology, some require a keen eye),
- that is possible given any constraints on your travel (most collections can be made locally, but seaweeds and ferns, for example, might need more distant excursions),
- that doesn't offend your ethical and other sensibilities (some collections necessitate death of invertebrates, and another has the potential to create truly revolting smells).

My main piece of advice is to start soon. Many groups are easier to find before the wintery weather sets in, so have a think and a preliminary scout about now. When you decide on something and start your field diary (as you certainly should) then you'll find a 'little and often' approach soon builds up, and this is an excellent way towards getting a good mark. With plenty of time before the hand-in, you can fit your collection round your other assignments, and I hope even find working on it an enjoyable change. Some people get really into their subject - it could help decide what you choose for your dissertation next year, or beyond into a job.

I'm always glad to talk to enthusiastic people to help with collection and identification advice, so don't be put off if I'm scowling (it's the beginning of term). Drop me an email or pop by to OJ16.
Rhiannon

Autumnal tips for tree-hunters

This weekend I went on a very pleasant, if slightly muddy walk through some ancient woodland near where I live. If you're interested in nature, you have to tread a bit of a fine line when you go for a walk with Normal people. You can't stop for everything that looks intriguing, or your companion will constantly find themselves talking to the empty air twenty metres ahead. But if you're walking somewhere local that you can return to, you can file away particularly interesting spots into your brain. There were some very mossy spots on my walk that I might come back to.

Ulmus glabra (public domain image)

But the point I want to make to potential winter twig collectors, is that you don't have to wait until the leaves have fallen before you get your eye in. It's not cheating in my book, because it's expanding your ability to recognise trees generally. Plus, if you're looking for lots of different species to make your collection excellent, spotting more unusual things as early on as possible is sensible, as they may not be so obvious once their leaves have gone. And then at least you know whereabouts to look.

It was because there were still a few leaves about that I noticed some of the understorey shrubs looked a bit different. And they turned out to be Wych elm (Ulmus glabra), which I was rather chuffed about (it's one of those species I still have to get straight in my head). I found some English elm (U. procera) last year, and that was in a hedgerow (as one would expect), but this Wych elm was in a wood (also as predicted by the books). So that was nice (and the sort of thing you could write about in your field diary).

Wych elms, incidentally, aren't connected with witches. You might have heard of the ghastly unsolved murder "Who put Bella in the Witch Elm" but really they're just words that sound the same. Wych is an Old English word meaning 'pliant and bendy' and Welsh bows were traditionally made from wych elm (Giraldus Cambrensis mentions it in a description of his trip around Wales in the 1180s).

Anyway, before I diverge too far - that's my tip. Go for a walk along hedges and streams and in woods, and see which native species you can identify now. You might be able to collect some relevant fruits and seeds at the same time. The crazily neon spindle berries are looking great at the moment.

CC image by Derek Harper

Update: 25th September.
Jim, Emma (our new GIS specialist, whom you may meet soon) and I have just been wading through knee-high wet grass in the parkland by the big yellow house near the motorway. Not particularly for fun, but to put out some 'refugia' (tiles under which snakes, lizards and slow worms might like to hide) for students to monitor the local reptile population. While out there I spotted some ash seeds - they'd be a good addition to your ash twig.

They're called 'ash keys' because I guess they hang together in bunches like keys. The seed itself is at the top end, and the bottom is a slightly twisted thin wing. The wing presumably helps the seed flutter a bit further away before it starts to grow. Various species use such a device: perhaps it would be fun to also include winged seeds from field maple, sycamore, and elms (if you can find any at this time of year).

If you collect ash keys very early in the year and pickle them, they're supposed to be quite delicious. I suppose it depends how keen you are on pickled things. I keep forgetting to have a go, unlike the blogger of Country Skills for Modern Life.

The other things I brought back were some hawthorn fruits ('haws'). They're mostly seed with only a thin layer of fruit, so not that tempting unless you're a hungry bird. Though I have read that they make a better hedgerow gin than the traditional sloe gin (and that is something you can make at this time of year).

There are two native hawthorns in this country, the common one (Crataegus monogyna) and Midland hawthorn (C. laevigata). You can tell by the scientific name of Common hawthorn that it has one seed (mono-gyna). The Midland hawthorn has two. Kevin Widdowson has a good comparison here. I don't think I've ever knowingly seen a Midland hawthorn, as otherwise the two species look very similar. It's one of those things that would give me a nerdy buzz. They're not particularly common in this part of the world (see the distribution map on the NBN Gateway) but if you don't find any and are heading to other parts of the country at Christmas, you could keep your eye out.

2016/17 collections: fungi

I thought it might be useful to review some of the best collections that were handed in this Spring, so you can gain inspiration from them. Although they might be a of different taxonomic group than you choose, there are plenty of tips that apply pretty generally.

A couple of the fungi collectors did extremely well, getting marks in the high 70s.

The person who marked these was very impressed with the quality of the specimens. I would suggest this means that they're not damaged (eg. by nibbling) and were at their peak of loveliness when collected, with all the useful features for identification (like the gills) being mature but not over-mature and decaying. It also implies that they were preserved properly (carefully air-dried or put in the freeze drier) and aren't deteriorating in their case.

The marker commented on the good way in which they were attached inside the cases so they could be accessed and examined. Both are in deep cases with hinged lids that can be opened. The large fungi are pinned directly to the board inside and can be easily removed. The smaller fungi in the collection in the top photo have been glued to neat cardboard backings to support them, and these are in turn pinned and so can be removed.

The collection in the lower photo was praised because the labels include the substrate on which the fungi were found - this is often a very useful clue to correct identification. In fact the good detail on the labels was noted (along with a couple of spelling mistakes!).

The upper collection included more specimens than the lower one, but some were incorrectly identified - the comments about the field diaries suggests that the markers expect to see you finding and documenting more examples than you can identify confidently, and that you won't submit all the specimens you find. So although one contained over ten more specimens than the other, they did get similar marks - it's quality, not just quantity.

Both students included specimens from the Ascomycota and Basidiomycota, but the marker noted that in one collection 'only 2 were Ascomycota, rest Basidiomycota' as though a better split might have been preferable.

Finally, both monographs were praised for drawing on the specimens in the collections to illustrate their points. And the field diaries also got good marks (for good detail, drawings and in situ photos) but suspicions were raised over how much had been completed actually in the field. This is something that's repeated so many times that I know it'll help your mark if you get into the habit of scribbling stuff down when you're out collecting.

It made me smile to read on one of the mark sheets the rarely uttered line "I particularly liked the Schizophyllum commune." You will know if you are turning into a fungi nerd if you take a look at this species and find yourself agreeing. I certainly loved this strange and weird specimen when the student brought it in for freeze-drying.