Professor Karim Vahed tells us about how he first became interested in insects and his work with Bush Crickets at the University of Derby. He explains what makes them so fascinating and why the Southern European Bush Cricket, Gryllus bimaculatus, is his favourite insect.
Professor Karim Vahed on why Bush Crickets are his favourite insect.
Do you have a favourite insect? What is it about it that you like? You can let us know using our Contact Us page.
If you enjoyed this video, you might like to take a look at others featuring scientists and other people who work with insects on our ‘People‘ pages.
As a natural history museum, we are perhaps slightly unusual: aside from some fossilised plants, there are no botanic specimens in our collections. The reason for this is that when the Museum opened its doors in June 1860, Oxford Botanic Garden had already been around for a considerable 239 years, and it was considered unnecessary to move it.
Today, the Botanic Garden celebrates 400 years since its founding as the Oxford Physic Garden on 25 July 1621. To mark this anniversary we’ve explored our archive to highlight some connections between the Museum and Botanic Garden, in a relationship that continues to this day.
With its Pre-Raphaelite influence, the design of the Museum was conceived as an object lesson in art; both beautiful and instructive, it should teach students and visitors alike about the natural world. One of the most noticeable decorative teaching tools are the columns, capitals and corbels that surround the main court of the museum. Following Pre-Raphaelite principles, these were designed by Professor of Geology and the first Keeper of the Museum, John Phillips, who sketched most of the designs and outlined the order they would go in.
Watercolour by John Phillips illustrating a design for a capital
Ink sketch by John Phillips of capital designs
Pencil sketch by John Phillips of capital designs
John Phillips’ plans for the arrangement of the capitals
John Phillips’ list of plants to use for the carving of the capitals
A finished carved capital in the Museum today, showing plants and animals
The plans called for 126 columns, 64 piers and 192 capitals and corbels. Each column was made from a different decorative stone from around Britain and Ireland, topped with a carved capital and flanked by a pair of corbels carved into plants representing the different botanical orders. As it was decided early in the design process for the Museum that the Oxford Botanic Garden would not move from the High Street, these carved plants were meant to ‘satisfy the botanist.’ Each column was supposed to be labelled with the name of the stone, its source, and the botanical name of the plant, but unfortunately only the geological inscriptions were completed.
James O’Shea carving the Cat window found on the front façade of the Museum, c. 1860
The carvings were created by ‘Nature’s own Pre-Raphaelites’ the O’Shea brothers, James and John, and their nephew, Edward Whelan. Working in collaboration with Charles Daubeny, Professor of Botany and head of the Oxford Botanic Garden, Phillips supplied the O’Sheas with specimens of the plants he had chosen, and so the carvings were made from life. Each capital is different and unique based on the plants they were representing. Some are simple and elegant while others are more intricate and hide small birds, animals and insects.
Phillips also worked with another curator at the Botanic Garden, William H. Baxter, who advised on suitable trees and shrubs to adorn the grounds surrounding the Museum. Over the years, as landscaping has changed and additional science buildings have been added around the Museum, only one of the trees chosen by Phillips and Baxter has survived. It is the imposing Giant Sequoia on the front lawn, which was planted in the early 1860s and is believed to be one of the oldest specimens in the United Kingdom.
Bill to Oxford Botanic Garden for planting trees and shrubs for the new Museum
List of trees and shrubs suitable for grounds of ‘University New Museum’
The Museum c.1900 showing the then-tiny Giant Sequoia on the far left of the image
Our connection to Oxford Botanic Garden continues to the present day. As the Museum embarks on the first major redisplay of its permanent exhibits in almost 20 years, staff are collaborating with the Garden to reference plants for displays showing the immense, interconnected variety of the natural world.
We are very pleased to be strengthening the Museum’s long relationship with the Botanic Garden, and would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone there a very happy 400th birthday!
In the last post Kate told us all about her favourite butterfly. In this post I will be showing you how to make your own butterfly feeder, from items you might commonly have at home, to help attract butterflies, and other insects, to your outside space. I had to raid my recycling bin for key materials.
Here are the same instructions on how to make a butterfly feeder, as can be seen in the video:
What you will need:
Cardboard
Coloured pens or paints
String or wool
Glue or sticky tape
Scissors
Bottle top
Hole Punch
Take a piece of cardboard and draw a flower with five petals, roughly 20cm wide.
Decorate your flower in any way you wish.
Cut out your flower.
Fix the bottle top to the middle of your flower using glue or sticky tape.
Use a hole punch to make a hole at the edge of each petal of your flower.
Cut five pieces of string or wool, each roughly 40cm long.
Tie the five pieces of string together at one end.
Turn your flower over and thread a piece of string through each hole, and tie the five pieces of string together.
Tie an additional piece of string, or wool, to the knot.
Hang your butterfly feeder in a sunny, but sheltered, spot outside.
Mix together sugar and water, or take a small piece of overripe fruit (e.g. orange or banana), and put it in the bottle lid.
Watch to see any butterflies, or other insects, that visit your feeder. You could investigate which foods different species prefer.
Please tell us about your butterfly feeders and investigations. We would love to see photos of them. Contact us or email at hopelearning@oum.ox.ac.uk.
This I-Spy Butterflies and Moths book was one of the reasons I became fascinated by insects as a child. I loved the Red Admiral on the front cover, particularly because they were not so easy to find where I lived and so seeing one felt very special. Here is a photograph I took last year of a Red Admiral near to where I grew up. Maybe I am getting better at spotting them!
Although the Red Admiral is a beautiful butterfly, it is not my absolute favourite. The butterfly I came to love above all others, and the one that I look forward to seeing every year, is the Peacock butterfly, Aglais io. These beautiful butterflies are out and about in our gardens, woodlands and open spaces right now. On a sunny day, see if you can spot one basking in the sunshine. Read on to find out why Peacocks are my favourite butterflies.
Peacock Butterfly on hand by rawdonfox CC BY 2.0, Peacock Butterfly in EXPLORED 1/8/2019 by seenbynick CC BY NC SA 2.0
Masters of Disguise
One of the most distinctive of our butterflies, and surely one of the most beautiful, there is no mistaking the Peacock. I just love their stunning wings with their dark red background topped with four iridescent eyes resembling the feathers of a peacock bird. In fact, the Peacock butterfly is a master of mimicry. The eyes make it look like something much scarier than a butterfly. When you look at the body and the eyes together, they look, I think, remarkably like the face of an owl. That would certainly put off a smaller bird from trying to have a peck! The underside of the Peacock is also worth mentioning as its woody, bark-like colour and patterns provide excellent camouflage when the butterfly’s wings are closed.
Peacock Butterfly – Ventral view (underside)
Don’t get stung
Looking for a Peacock caterpillar? Then there is only one place you should look – in a bed of nettles! Be careful not to get stung, this is where the adult females lay their eggs. What a great adaptation to use the plant’s stinging capabilities to protect your young! Other species of butterfly also do this, including the Red Admiral and the Small Tortoiseshell. This is one of the reasons why it is so important to allow nettles to grow in your gardens. Without them, several important butterfly species have nowhere to lay their eggs. Try to leave a wild area in your garden to encourage the widest variety of insects possible. Pretty flowers are important but they are not the only plants that insects need!
Peacock Caterpillar Flickr Mark Seton CC-BY-NC 2.0
Hidden Winter Treasures
Peacocks are one of the few butterflies in this country that hibernate in the winter as adults, emerging in the spring to mate and lay the eggs for the next generation. The other butterfly species that over-winter as adults are the Small Tortoiseshell (Aglais urticae), the Comma (Polygonia c-album), the Brimstone (Gonepteryx rhamni) and the Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta). We may also be able to add the Large Tortoiseshell (Nymphalis polychloros) to this list. Once widespread, this butterfly has been lost in the UK since the 1960s. However, sightings in Southern England have been increasing and it is hoped that this butterfly is making a comeback. To find out more, check out this interesting article Tracking down the Large Tortoiseshell.
Every now and again, you might be lucky enough to find a Peacock butterfly sheltering in a quiet corner of your house or in your garden shed during the winter. If you do, don’t disturb them as they need to stay asleep until spring. As a child, I remember finding a hibernating Peacock butterfly in the folds of some rarely-drawn curtains in the cold spare bedroom. I kept peeking at it regularly until one early spring day, the butterfly was gone.
Next week, check out Susie’s post showing you how to make a butterfly feeder to help attract butterflies to your outside space.
Do you have a favourite butterfly? I’d love to hear about it. Contact us or email hopelearning@oum.ox.ac.uk
Many of us at the Museum are inspired creatively, as well as scientifically, by the wonders of the natural world. So it is always uplifting to see that the Museum building and its collections evoke similar feelings in our visitors. However, apart from the odd, sneaked peek over the shoulder of someone busily sketching a specimen or spandrel, it is rare that we get to enjoy the results of their inspiration, which is why it was so nice to receive the poem below from Tony Owen.
Tony emailed us to say that, whilst teaching on the Summer International Programmes at Hertford College in 2018 and 2019, he often visited the Museum and became aware of the colony of swifts that annually nests in the Museum tower. Tony read about their fascinating lives, watched their progress through the breeding season on our live nest box cams and Swifts Diary, and enjoyed seeing them screaming around the tower itself.
This led to the inspiration for Tony’s poem – The Swifts. In putting pen to paper, Tony joins many other poets who have found inspiration from these amazing birds, including Ted Hughes, Anne Stevenson and Wilfred Owen.
It was very kind of Tony to share his poetry with us so we thought we would share it with you in the hope that it may inspire your own creativity from nature.
During the summer you may notice large beetles flying around in gardens and other green spaces. These insects are called ‘chafers’. While they may look similar, there are in fact several different species all known by this common name.
The name chafer comes from the Old English word for beetle, ceafor. It is similar to the modern German word for beetle, käfer. So, ‘chafer’ really just means ‘beetle’ but in English it came to be used for beetles that were particularly noticeable. Chafers got themselves noticed because they are large, the adults can fly and often emerge in large numbers at the same time of year, sometimes making a buzzing noise as they fly. They are attracted to lights, so often fly in open windows, then bump around the room trying to get out. Farmers and gardeners often think of them as pests because they can damage plants.
Chafers all have a similar life cycle. The larvae live in the soil or dead wood, often for several years. They are sometimes thought of as pests because they may feed on the roots and other parts of plants, but they are important recyclers, feeding on dead, decaying material and helping to return the nutrients it contains back into the soil. The larvae then pupate and survive the cold winter months in this form. The adults emerge in late spring, or summer, depending on the species. It may seem that large numbers of beetles have suddenly appeared out of nowhere, but in fact these adults have just emerged at the same time. The adult beetles mate and lay eggs which will become the next generation of larvae.
Cockchafer, Melolontha melolonta
The largest of the British chafers is the cockchafer (Melolontha melolontha). The adults emerge in late April or May, giving it another common name, the ‘Maybug’. They fly in a wobbly way and make a buzzing noise. This can make them seem a bit alarming but they are completely harmless to humans.
Cockchafers were once a huge agricultural pest and could emerge in such numbers that people were encouraged to eat them! A French recipe for cockchafer soup was published in the 1800s (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockchafer_soup) and in the 1920s, German children were reportedly eating sugar coated cockchafers.
Pesticides brought this marvellous beetle to the brink of extinction in the UK during the last century. Now changes in agriculture and pesticide use mean that cockchafers are making a comeback and they can be found across England, although they still rarer in Scotland. The nationally much rarer Northern Cockchafer (Melolontha hippocastani) is found in Scotland, Northern England and Ireland.
The Summer Chafer (Amphimallon soltitiatis) looks a bit like the cockchafer, but is smaller, at about 20mm, and had a rounded, rather than pointed tail end . Traditionally, this beetle is associated with the Summer Solstice, or longest day of the year, because the adults often emerge in the second half of June. In fact, the Summer Chafer can be found all over Britain in June and July. Kate and Susie found lots of Summer Chafers on a visit to Orchard Meadow Primary School in Oxford on 23 June this year and have seen it in the grounds of several other schools we have visited.
Another similar beetle is the Welsh Chafer Hoplia philanthus which, despite its name, is not restricted to Wales, but also found in Southern England and the Midlands. It is smaller and less ‘hairy’ than the other chafers and can be recognised by the single large ‘claws’ on the end of its legs.
Welsh Chafer, Hoplia philanthus. Image Credit: Neil Stanworth
Eleanor and her father kindly sent us this picture of a Welsh Chafer they caught in their garden in the Midlands recently using a pitfall trap they made after watching Kate’s video from a few weeks ago. We’d love to see pictures of beetles and other insects you have found.
Some chafers are a striking green colour. One of these is the Rose Chafer (Cetonia aurata) which flies between May and October. Gardeners may consider it as a pest, particularly if they grow roses, because the beetles feed on their plants but, like the other chafers, these beetles are also important recyclers.
Another green chafer is the Noble Chafer (Gnorimus nobilis). You can tell the two apart because the Rose Chafer has smooth wing cases but the Noble Chafer has wrinkled ones and is metallic green with white speckles. While adult Noble Chafers feed on plants like hogweed, the larvae live in the decaying wood of old fruit trees. Because of this, the Noble Chafer is found in traditional orchards. As these have disappeared, so has this beautiful beetle which is now rare and a priority species under the UK biodiversity framework.
So, look out for chafers this summer and send us pictures of the ones you find. You may even come across one that’s quite rare!
