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Weather statistics for several years ,  Articles on Natural History.  etc etc.
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The Marchantia liverwort.

The tiny Marchantia for me has always had a fascination.  It looks so exotic.   Though the fruiting stems stand less than 4 cms high, they have the appearance of tiny palm trees. The plant has two forms of reproduction.  The 'palm tree' growths carry the sexual organs.  On the wide spreading 'thallus' there are 'gemma cups' easily visible in this photo. These are non-sexual reproductive structures.  The gemmae which develop inside the cups are simply large groups of cells.  They become dislodged with drops or rain and so can be dispersed to grow elsewhere.
The plants are either male or female (dioecious) so that the little palm tree growths carry on the separate plants either the male or the female organs. These called in the male 'antheridia' and the in female 'archegonia' are suspended on the under side of the 'palm like ' 'fronds'.  It is amazing
 to many that the male antheridia produce motile sperm which swim in the raindrops to fertilise the ova in the female archegonia.
After that process has been achieved  tiny capsules grow from the fertilised ova These capsules develop in their interiors tiny spores which eventually may be blown away in the wind to find a new place to grow.
The whole plant carries in every cell nucleus only a half number of chromosomes (haploid). Only the fertilised ovum and the immediate divisions of that ovum have the full double set of chromosomes (diploid).
This photo is of the plant growing in my courtyard, where it can cover a  considerable area.

The Biting Fly Stomomyx calcitrans

 This cursed fly seems to be more common than it used to be.  To the unaided eye it looks like a rather small house fly.  With the aid of a super macro camera one can see more detail. The lower photograph shows the offending proboscis.  It is as hard as horn and can penetrate the soft skin of the human leg with ease, causing much irritation.
It is said that the skin is first cut using the lower lip of the labium and that is certainly how it feels.  The larvae develop in rotting straw or hay especially if it has been used as animal bedding and has been impregnated  with urine. 

The Black Soldier Fly - Hermetia illucens

 The sort of beastie which is a creature that one should really know more about, but one doesn't.
There are quite a few who do know a good deal, however.  Among the avant-garde of gardeners there are those who are quite familiar with this insect.
Its original home is in the continent of America. Now it is probably found world-wide.  Looking up the recorded distribution in France, I find it is recorded in departments along the Atlantic Coast and here and there elsewhere, but not in the Department of the Lot, till now.

This large fly (16 mms long) was sitting on a window frame, looking almost moribund, which it probably was, for the adult only lives a few days.  It cannot eat and is but a reproductive element in the life cycle, in the same manner that exists with mayflies.  I thought at first that it was a species of horsefly (Tabanid) but the length of the antennae seemed to suggest otherwise.  Then what attracted my attention strikingly were the two transparent discs on the forepart of the abdomen. One can see right through the body like windows.
This insect is, as a larva, a maggot, a voracious scavenger of both plant and animal remains.
Further reading tells me that the insect is actually 'cultivated' to reduce compost and food waste.  The larvae can be used as chicken feed and even it is suggested as human food.
The adults live  for a few days, in which they mate, lay eggs and then die.
The references in general say that it causes no disease problems and is probably most useful in clearing up the waste generated by us humans.

Grasshopper hunting wasps.

 In late summer when one opens a window, it is not unusual to find the groove at the bottom packed with pieces of cut hay packaging a number of small 'grasshoppers'.  The green insects are in fact 'sauterelles' as the French call them. To create confusion in English they are called crickets, whilst to make that yet more confusing what the French call criquets, the English call 'grasshoppers'.

Wasp hoard of hay and oak-bush crickets

This mass of sauterelles and hay is placed there by a large black and red wasp named Sphex rufocinctus.  The sauterelles are Meconema meridionalis - In English called the southern oak-bush cricket.  This species is quite tiny rarely reaching 15 mms.  Indeed they are small enough to be confused as larval forms. They tend to hide away during the day underneath the leaves of oak, high up in the trees.  

The crickets are paralysed by the wasp. And into this heap of Hay and crickets, the wasp lays about one egg to every four crickets.  After  some short period the eggs hatch and the larvae commence to eat the food stored for them. That you can see in the photo on the right.
These larvae will then pupate first enveloping themselves in silk rather as caterpillars will do.  The firm dark brown pupae will await there till the next spring.

Another pest from the Far East - Chestnut leaf gall wasps.

Dryocosmus kuriphilus

It looks almost like a Christmas decoration, doesn't it.  But those two shining berry-like structures are a pest from China.  They are galls created by a minute wasp with the jaw cracking Latin name written below the picture.  The wasp is classified in a group known as cynips. Such wasps are about two to three millimetres long and pitch black in colour but with bright orange legs.

 Image of the wasp  taken from the Forestry Commission site, 

and originally courtesy of Gyorgy Csoka, 

Hungary Forest Research Institute, Bugwood.org

The tiny wasp does not reproduce via normal mating.  The females lay eggs in small batches amounting to about 100 eggs at the end of summer. This is without any mating i.e it is parthenogenesis. The eggs are placed just inside the developing winter buds.  The larvae develop slowly and induce the surrounding plant tissues to develop into protective galls. The following summer the adults emerge to infect new buds.

 Gleaning information from the internet one learns that its original home is China, from it spread by 1940 to Japan,  and then to Korea in 1974 and on to the United States. In 2002 it appeared for the first time in Europe. The species has been extensively recorded from Italy since 2005. In 2007 it reached the south of France.

At that time the infested trees were burned but the spread has not been stopped. It has reached England and again burning of trees was tried.  
The pest weakens the trees which must have a toll on both fruit and timber production.
The insect is clearly now widespread through France.

It looks as though it is here to stay.  Just as the Asian hornet is now established and also the Asian Box tree  caterpillar so this Oriental Chestnut Gall Wasp is here to stay.

Caterpillar eats orchid

The tongue orchid produces no nectar.   Yet in the tubular hollow formed by the petals one can  find from time to time insects of various kinds.  Tiny beetles can scurry around.  Nevertheless it was something of a surprise to find a caterpillar (May 3rd 2013)  The caterpillar was tiny but the space is small and it was curled up. Its head was moving up and down as though it was eating, and indeed that was the case!

T=he flower of this orchid has a bright shiny purple swelling  on the labellum. That is to say the petal which lies lowest

and forms the base of the flower tube.  I extracted the caterpillar by shaking onto a small saucer and dissected the flower.  In the illustration here I have pinned the labellum of the eaten flower next to another which was not eaten.  You can see how the caterpillar has chewed at the red swelling in the petal on the left, exposing the pale tissue beneath.

Pursuing this matter, I searched for the species name of the caterpillar.  To keep it alive so I could see it more easily  I placed it on another Serapias flower head held in some water in a glass beaker.  The caterpillar crawled up the flower and proceeded to eat at the edge of a petal in the fashion which is common to caterpillars, attacking the petal edge sideways on and champing through as though it were a leaf edge.
The next two pictures show the caterpillar at the top of the flower and beginning to feed.

It appears to be the caterpillar of the common quaker moth [Orthosia cerasi syn - O.stabilis]  The books give the food plants as oak, elm. birch, willow, hawthorns, hazel and perhaps others.  I think I can add Serapias lingua!
The most likely explanation for thecreature being on the orchid is that heavy rain and gusty winds which have shaken the  'darling buds of may'  have thrown the caterpillar from the young leaves of the downy oak (Quercus pubescens) which are above this little group of orchids and the little creature will happily eat whatever it can.
The Common Quaker Moth is not that spectacular.  Its  fore wings are brown but prettily patterned.

Weather 2012

Statistical data cumulative for 2012
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April and May were wet and since then it has been very dry and hot. In July and August the average maximum temperatures approached thirty degrees Celsius.
The drought naturally has led to a failure of many crops only kept going with some irrigation from rain water stored in our cistern from the earlier part of the year.
The walnut crop this year will be poor but oddly there is a large crop of figs.
We make fig jam each year which serves as a substitute for Marmalade.  This year I have made 25 pots which should last till the next fig season.
The problem with fig jam is that it does not set without encouragement.  The fault lies with the acidity of the fruit.
This recipe solves the problem

To make 6/7 jars of Fig Marmalade

1.6 kg of ripe figs, cut into small chunks

One Lemon - use the zest and juice and as much pulp as possible.

Three large slices of crystallised ginger cut finely.

One rounded teaspoon of cinnamon powder.

1.6 kg of sugar (with pectin added if possible)

FOUR tablespoons of red wine vinegar.

Bring the figs, lemon, ginger and cinnamon mixture to the boil.  Macerate with a hand-held blender.

Add the sugar and boil quickly for about 6 minutes.  Test for setting. 

Bimonthly weather report January-February 2012

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It has been  a disastrous season - at least if we only remember February.  January was reasonably mild but February was Arctic!  The average night temperature was nearly minus three, but there were ten consecutive nights below minus eight.  We suffered as did numerous friends and neighbours from burst pipes.  One gushed like a fountain and our guest flat had three centimetres of water throughout the bedroom, bathroom and kitchen.  The consequence of that inundation is not entirely resolved in March.
The amount of rainfall has been appallingly low. We had only 7 millimetres in February.   Last year we had 44 and the year before 38. 
The snowdrops were delayed.  The first one was seen on the 23rd January  but it and its buddies soon hit the frost and the real flowering appeared on the 28/29 February.
Nearly all winter vegetables in the garden were killed.  Brussels sprouts  pulled through.  The roses which  were planted last autumn have been seriously damaged and possibly some have died.  This is a terrible shame  because they were a special planting to commemorate my wife's birthday.
No celandines appeared before March and of course the early flowering plum tree is still shut up tight even as I write this on the 10th March.
No migrating cranes (birds) have been seen during these two months.

The Sorcerer's Heart -Clathrus ruber

My wife said "There is something odd in the hedge".  We were in the car returning from shopping and just turning the corner of the lane to enter our driveway.   It wasn't an old discarded ball but this astonishing fungus.  It is astonishing at any time.  But to see it on January 2nd (2012) is truly extraordinary.   It is only the third time I have seen it.   The last time was some years ago when I came upon a specimen growing just under the walls of the ruined chateau of Montsegur,  That place is remarkable enough; perched high on a small mountain, bleak and forbidding.  It was the last refuge of the the religious sect - the Cathars - massacred on this spot by the bigots of the Catholic Church.

Clathrus ruber is usually said to be a southern species desiring warmth.  On January 2nd it was 4 degrees in the morning. So that seems odd.  It is rare in England, having mostly been found very close to the south coast, though are a few records close to the east coast of Scotland.  Perhaps it needs warmth during the previous year? It certainly needs warmth to let its stink pervade the air.  For, so it is said, the spores are distributed by flies attracted to the stink.  This specimen attracted no flies and I had to get my nose to within 15 centimetres of it to detect its characteristic smell of rotting flesh.

The specimen was  no mean size, having a diameter of over fifteen centimetres.  The cage like structure had slightly collapsed towards the left.  It expands out of an 'egg' the soft papery casing of which can be seen at the base.  The mass of spores immersed in a brown slime is contained in the very centre and this is surrounded by a the girders of spongy red tissue.  This net of girders expands quite quickly creating a cage with the greeny-brown gooey stinking mass of spores (the gleba) sticking to the inside of the cage like structure.

It seems incredible that anyone would attempt to eat the thing, but I read from an American journal (1854) that a young man ate a portion and he suffered convulsions and lost his power of speech and became unconscious for 48 hours.   Another scientific account details that the fruit body is more than usually rich in the element manganese. That does seem odd.  Manganese is important in various enzymatic processes.  Perhaps it is important in whatever processes make the net like ball  expand rapidly?

Though it is rarely seen,  It is usually found in places with much leaf mould.

Flies which distribute the spores probably not only do this on their feet but also through their digestive tract.  I hypothesise, but it would seem not unlikely. You might suppose that the red colour (which is due to carotenes, and similar to the chemicals that make carrots red) might, in being similar to the colour of red meat, also be attractive to flies.  But do flies see colour?  If they do not, what then is the reason for this colour?  Other related species have this same colouration.

By the 6th January the gleba had almost totally been washed away by the rain and the girders, now pale pink, were left with a consistency of polystyrene foam, not at all slimy  and with little smell.

This article was first published in  http://blogs.angloinfo.com/an-english-naturalist-in-france/

Bimonthly Weather Report November December 2011

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December was by far the wettest month of the year, with 91 mms.
The comparative figures  for the other months from January onwards are.
23,38,45,04,19,37,22,38,33,58,29 and then 91. == 437 mms (17.2 inches)
In 2010 the rainfall was 648 mms (157 mms in June!) == 25.5 inches
In 2009 the rainfall was 671 mms = 26.4 inches

December was also quite mild 
The average temperatures for December (degrees C) over the past three years being.
2009   3.65 min/ 7.42 max
2010   1.61 min/ 6.52 max
2011   6.65 min/ 9.97max

Night frosts were 2009 - 8  2010 -14  2011 -2

Flowers open over Christmas included Mexican orange blossom in plenty, winter jasmine.  Rose bushes are growing their buds. 
The damned moles are having a whale of a time, as I write this on January 3rd 2012

You can eat any mushroom once!

Monsieur Gouny, our neighbour, looked at my small basket of mushrooms and he said ‘Ce sont les rosés?’ – they are the field mushrooms? – rosés des prés’ ?   ‘Oh no they are not’, I replied in French.  I illustrate some here as they were growing. They look like mushrooms but anyone who ate them would soon be writhing with a highly disturbed stomach. 

I have many textbooks on mushrooms and toadstools and that on the mushrooms lists over seventy species.  Of toadstools as a general group, there are thousands in Europe.

The mushrooms, collectively placed in the genus Agaricus all have spores which begin pink but which turn to a deep dark purple to black as they ripen.  The so-called gills which carry the spores change colour as the spores change colour.  Agaricus mushrooms all have a fleshy ring on the stem but the stem in otherwise bare and has no enveloping sac at its base (unlike the various deadly poisonous Amanitas).

The numerous true mushrooms all look very similar.  So, how do you tell them apart?

Well the ones I collected make the answer very difficult. 

These were Agaricus xanthodermus, the so-called ‘yellow-stainer’.  I fear that almost all  living things come in a variety of forms and the species of mushrooms are no exception.   If you read the books they will tell you that the ‘yellow-stainer’ has two marked characteristics.  Firstly, that the flesh in the base of the stem when cut, turns chrome-yellow, and that the broken flesh has a smell of ink.  It so happens that mine have no smell at all, and the colour change is extremely slight.

I illustrate a specimen which is shows a little yellow in the base – good specimens would be brilliantly yellow.

So it is necessary to look for other signs which are less obvious.  The shape of the cap helps.  This is not a smooth even dome.  When young it has a more rectangular section.  The sides tend to be almost vertical and the top is more flat. [The one marked Y shows this shape.] Then if you cut the specimen in half, the young gills are exceedingly pale pink.  Lastly look to where the mushrooms are growing.  Agaricus xanthodermus does not normally, if ever, grow far away from trees, whilst the ‘rosé des prés’  is found in the open pastures.   The yellow stainer is probably growing around the roots of the trees and in fact helping the tree to obtain minerals from the soil.  It is also itself in return obtaining carbohydrates from the trees.  So beware of mushrooms which look like mushrooms growing under trees! The field mushroom is obtaining nutrients from decomposing organic matter, possibly old horse dung.

Above all remember that the best mushrooms have a red tinge to their flesh and will colour any water in which they are placed a pale pinky-red.  The yellow stainer will never do that.  All mushrooms can be placed either into the group of red stainers or the group of yellow stainers – which bruise yellowish,

Bimonthly Weather Report 2011 September October

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These two months were appreciably drier and warmer than in 2010.  That only 9 mm rain fell in September was remarkable.  The ground became too hard and dry to work.  Farmers are not able to find enough hay for their animals. By mid October there was no water left in the garden cistern.  But on the 24th the situation was saved by heavy rain.

The Cranes flew south on the 16th and 17th of October, a little late for them.

Ground frosts occurred on the 20-21 October which seemed to suggest that winter was imminent, but it was a false alarm, and at the end of the month summer temperatures had returned. 

The walnut crop was poor with very small nuts falling.  The Hazel tree yielded nothing at all.

Weather report - July -August 2011

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Bimonthly Weather Report

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These two months were considerably more wet than in 2010.  The rainfall totalled 35 mms last year  and it was 125 mm this year.  This at least restored the balance of the drought in the first half of 2011.

Unfortunately the vegetables suffered well before July commenced and although it has been possible to get some beans planted and crop, some crops have been totally futile. The parsnips totally failed to germinate and there was no attempt to plant a third time in July.  

As I reported for May-June, the hay crop was appallingly poor. 

Nevertheless some fruit crops have done quite well.  There were quite a few plums and the walnut and chestnut trees will probably produce good crops.  In an entry on this blog I have commented on the fruiting of the True Service trees (Sorbus domestica).  Their  fruit crops are immense and  branches are breaking under the load.  Such also happened with apples and plums.  

Partridges  have been scuttling around as the car approaches along the lanes. But not immediately near the house.  The odd hare scampers across the field as I write this piece and we see small family groups of roe deer on some mornings from the bedroom window.

But it seems to me that insects generally have not been as prolific as usual.  There have been very few sightings of the horse fly [I seem to think - none!]with large green eyes (Philipomya graeca).   The Silver Washed Fritillary butterfly  has hardly had a sighting, yet in previous years we normally see several at once trapped indoors and trying to get out of the windows.  There has not been the usual numbers of Marbled White butterflies. Small flies of the house-fly type appear to have been less abundant.

There was a fairly good cropping of  fungi at the end of July some days after a downpour of rain, but it was not repeated after the 26 mms of rain on the 26^th August.

A few Cesar’s mushrooms were seen in July.  No cèpes! 

Towards the end of August a few Autumn Ladies Tresses (Spiranthes spiralis – an orchid) have appeared on the pasture and I have noticed that some other flowers are flowering quite well at this time – Sickle leaved hare’s ear is fairly abundant in its accustomed location and the yellow Odontites is quite luxuriant.

The True Service Tree or Cormier

Wild Plants of France 5.

This beautiful tree, laden with golden fruits is growing at the far side of my daughter’s field.  The locals know it as the Cormier.  In England it is named in books as the true service tree.  But few people will recognise it.

Once it was thought to be extinct in England.  When I was young it was thought that there was just one tree growing in the Wyre Forest near Kidderminster in central England.  There, that single tree was known as the ‘whitty pear’.

Some time in the 1960’s I happened to read the work of Nennius (in translation) of the Wonders of Britain.  Nennius was a monk who lived around the year 800 in North Wales.  He gathered together all kinds of scraps of information.  I was trying to get to grips with the stories surrounding King Arthur whom Nennius mentions.

He wrote in latin ‘Juxta flumen quod vocatur Guoy, poma inveniuntur super fraxinum in proclivo saltus qui est prope ostio fluminis’.    And this is translated as:

‘Next to the river Wye apples spring from an ash tree on a slope by the river estuary.’

I happened to be living fairly near the Wye  at the time.

A friend of mine, a botanist, happened to be wandering around  the district and  he found on the banks of the Severn very close to where the Wye joins that larger river,  amongst some scrubby and neglected patches of trees specimens of this same tree.

It could not be better described as looking like an ash tree bearing small apples.

These must be descended from the same tree or trees that Nennius describes.

The leaves resemble much those of the rowan tree or mountain ash to which it is in fact related.

The fruits are, unless ripe to the point of rotting very bitter.  They almost take the lining off the teeth. Yet the Latin name Sorbus domestica reflects a culinary use.  It is claimed that they were fermented to make a form of cider.   

The wood is fine grained and excellent for carving. But generally the trees end up as firelogs. In this district of south-central France the tree is quite common growing on the edge of the abundant woods of pubescent oak. Most are felled in the recurrent process of cutting timber for firewood. There are few around as old as this specimen, though the tree is said to live to 600 years and more.   This one is perhaps towards a hundred years. 

Mushrooms make the French ill.

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August 9 2011.    In the past three weeks, 94 mms (nearly four inches) of rain has fallen.  After the heat and drought of the previous months, this has resulted in a flush of toadstools of many species.  Many of the French who retain a strong folk memory of starvation on a diet of  snails, thrushes and toadstools, take advantage of this glut and invade the countryside to collect and eat.  Unfortunately for them, the folk memory does not tell them the difference between the edible and the toxic.
Within the past two weeks the Centre of  Toxicology  at Toulouse has had a flood of inquiries on toadstool poisoning.  Eight people were hospitalised at Cahors, four at St. Céré, two at Figeac.  Village pharmacists all have a training in toadstool recognition,  but few are thoroughly knowledgeable.
The local paper says that the usual culprit was the Satan's mushroom.   What they should have eaten were the cepes.

To the left is the Satan.
It has a pale top about the size of a large dinner plate.The stem is fat and mostly red and the flesh is a bright yellow which changes to blue when cut. The pores below the cap are bright red.
The  cepe is on the right.   They can also be large, though usually a little smaller than the Satan. It is a brown colour. The pores begin white and turn to dirty yellow as they age.  The stem is also a pale brown and the flesh is white and hardly changes when it is cut.  The stem also has a net like pattern on it.   I add that the stem of Satan's toadstool also has a net on it, though in that case the net is whitish yellow on a reddish background.

A basket of cepes

It is almost impossible for anyone but a total innocent to mistake the two.  I suspect that the newspaper journalists don't know the cepe from the others either!  The unfortunate people probably ate something else. 
One can quite easily make mistakes of identification with other genera of toadstools, but anyone who is not certain should never eat any toadstool.
The cepes fetch large prices at the markets - ten euros a kilo is not exceptional.  They are not worth it.  Always, I guarantee it,  if one shows a French person some toadstools in a wood or field, they ask "Can you eat it?".  I reply - "You can eat any toadstool once!"

Weather May-June 2011

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The drought continued. The hay crop was only 9 inches high.  There is a request for anyone with a hay field going to waste to help out the farmers. There are quite a few English, Dutch and Belgian  owners who do not use their fields.  Of course they just revert to woodland.  We allow the hay on our fields to be taken by our neighbouring farmer.   It keeps our view open and we get a good variety of pasture flowers.  The hay was cut just into July and yielded less than three bales.  Last year there were 13 bales.

The orchids this year were almost non-existent, because of the drought.

The rainwater cistern of 42 cubic metres capacity is almost dry.  We have not been able to water the plants since mid June.  Since my daughter Rachel is growing cut flowers for sale, this is a serious matter.

During the first week of May we had the 'Vent d'Autan'.  This is a powerful wind from the South East, rather like the Mistral in Provence.  Fortunately it is not a frequent occurrence (unlike the Mistral, which can spoil any holiday in Provence!). It can be caused either by cyclonic conditions over Spain or anticyclonic weather over mid France. The wind is funnelled from Narbonne to Toulouse and then up through the departément of the Lot.

A hare seems to have made itself at home near to the house.  If one approaches, it hunkers down and pretends that you cannot see it.  If you get about six feet away it then takes off.

Bimonthly Weather Report March April 2011

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March began cold.  The beautiful early flowering St. John's Plum tree did not flower until March 8th.  This wild tree whose fruit in midsummer makes the most excellent jam is often in flower in February (19th February in 2008).

Other flowers were also late - daffodils 14th March, celandines 18 March.  These dates represent a fairly full flowering.  

Our last ground frost was March 20th.

The cuckoo was heard on March 16th.

But then at the very end of March the temperatures rose significantly.

Summer temperatures came in the first week of April. 

the first Orchis morio was seen on April 3rd.

The 6th April we saw the butterflies -Scarce Swallowtail and Orange tip.

The hoopoe was heard on April 1st.  The nightingale on April 25th. It was a few days earlier heard at Lavercantière about 10 km away.

But April saw the beginning of a drought.  Only 4 mm. of rain fell in the month.

It was the driest and warmest April in the last few years.  

April 2010 rainfall was 13 max temp. 19.6 ; in 2009 -168 mm. and 16.2 degrees.

Our rainwater reservoir is in full use for watering the flower crop and our vegetables.

Bimonthly Weather Report

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January was decidedly warmer than those of 2009 and 2010.

Min temps. in order 2.06, 0.58, and this year 2.87

Max temps. 7.23, 4.46, and 8.23

February continued similarly

Min temps. 3.87, 1.93 and 4.14

Max temps. 10.08, 7.96, and 11.07

However the numbers of night frosts showed no trend.  2010 had more frosts.  In 2011 no snow fell in January/February.

Nature..

The 1st Viola odorata  was in flower on the 1st January. The 1st snowdrop on the 16th January (as in 2009 and 2008)  I was glad to see the local wild snowdrops which I transplanted to the edge of our lower woodland produced 8 flowers on February 7th (3 in 2010 on February 19th).  It is always several degrees colder in the valley bottom.  

Celandines in flower on 28th February.

On the 25th February a skein  of about 50 Cranes flew North-East (1st March in 2010).  

A Feather Beetle

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Searching a sample of leaf litter which had accumulated in a ditch beneath oak trees, I found this odd little beast.

Its name takes up more room than the animal. It is less than one millimetre in length and you can only make out its structure with a microscope.

You cannot make out the details of the body because it is too opaque for the microscope. You may make out enough of the shape to see that it is an insect.

The remarkable structure is the great feathery excrescence at the end of the body. The books say that this represents  its wings. There are a large number of ‘cilia’ projecting from each side of the two central axes. These 'cilia' appear to be hollow. Each cilium has fine projections along the length.

What can be their function? I discover in a Russian journal [Zoologičeskij žurnal 2008, vol 87 pp 181-188] that A.A. Polilov has examined the structure of these beetles, but little more is known. He found that many internal organs are severely reduced (even allowing for the minute size). He says..(I quote) ..”The most important among them are the following: the absence of midgut muscles, reduction of two malpighian tubules (i.e. the nitrogenous excretory organs), the decrease in the number of abdominal stigmas (i.e. breathing pores), the strong reduction of the tracheal system (respiratory system), the absence of the heart, reduction of the circulatory system …”. He also lists reduction of the nervous system.

This information may help us to surmise what the function is. The ‘cilia’ appear to be hollow and empty.  It would seem unlikely that the cilia replace the excretory system. We know that the respiratory system of breathing pores and the air tubes (the tracheae) are reduced. Is it not likely that these ‘feathers’ are in fact the breathing system of this minute insect, and that gaseous exchange occurs across their relatively immense surface?

Then we might conjecture on the evolution of these creatures. Could it be that these ‘feathers’ are most effective under water? Is it that the beetles only live in waterlogged conditions or were their ancestors water living beetles?

It is said to be found in most regions of Europe and beyond into Asia.