Tunnellers, fliers, crawlers: your nominations for the UK invertebrate of the year have been pouring in, paying tribute to these wonderful creatures and testifying over and over again to the wonder and awe that they inspire.
We still have a few days till the voting starts, and we haven’t yet worked out which of your many many suggestions will be added to the list – but the love and enthusiasm for the UK’s invertebrates has bowled us over, so we thought we’d round up some of the tributes to your favourite spineless creatures here.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
We still have a few days till the voting starts, and we haven’t yet worked out which of your many, many suggestions will be added to the list – but the love and enthusiasm for the UK’s invertebrates has bowled us over, so we thought we’d round up some of the tributes to your favourite spineless creatures here.
This includes spinning display flights and territorial disputes amongst the males and the female coating her eggs with sand or soil before flicking them into the nest holes of solitary bees.
As their nickname suggests, adults are abundant in late spring/early summer – they’re often spotted bumbling along or flying into things (for those who do mothing, they can be a lovely surprise as they quite often find their merry way into traps).
An 1896 drawing of two male cockchafers copulating by the French naturalist, Henri Gadeau de Kerville, is thought to be the first rendering of same-sex sexual behaviour in a non-human animal.
The female rhinoceros (the males have a horn) was so delicate and obliging I managed to swap her over to my left hand and snap a few portraits of her beautiful glossy armour before we went our separate ways.
The Manx flea is as British as Stonehenge, symbolises the plight of many threatened parasites, and is an incredibly unique insect worthy of a place to compete for UK invertebrate of the year!
The original article contains 1,689 words, the summary contains 234 words. Saved 86%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
