Latest news with #PatrickBarkham
The Guardian
25-06-2025
- The Guardian
Country diary: A butterfly with a touch of the Elizabeth Taylors
It's happenstance that I glance up from a corner of the Pleasure Boat Inn in Hickling on a quiet Sunday evening and see the Guardian natural history writer Patrick Barkham at the bar. When he tells me that the pub is owned by Norfolk Wildlife Trust, I wonder briefly if one of us has drunk unwisely. But he is, after all, president of the trust, and when he explains that it already owned the surrounding land, that the purchase has both restored a cherished community asset and created opportunities to introduce an entirely new demographic to the wildlife of the Norfolk Broads, it starts to make sense. At Patrick's suggestion, the following morning I take a walk through the managed mosaic of nearby Hickling Broad Nature Reserve. Where a path emerges from a small woodland, I find myself flanked by a shoulder-high bramble hedge. Mundane and maligned bramble may be, but in full bloom, intertwined with flowering honeysuckle, it looks beautiful, smells amazing and is humming with life. I let my focus drift (the same trick required for those 'magic eye' images of the 1990s), and everywhere there is movement: many species of bee, assorted sawflies, dozens of different hoverflies, darting damselflies. I push my face into a hall-of-mirrors space where stems and foliage form a maze of interconnected chambers and passages. The air inside is submarine green and humid. When a break in the clouds allows hot sunlight to penetrate, there's a corresponding intensification in the insect hum. I raise my head and spot a new kind of movement. My first ever swallowtails, the largest, fluttery-est, buttery-est of British butterflies, are sashaying above the hedge like supermodels working a catwalk. Their sheer glamour calls to mind the kohl-and-gold extravagance of Elizabeth Taylor's Cleopatra: wholly excessive, but somehow they pull it off. The impression is heightened by a rattle of camera shutters each time one alights to strike a pose. I'm the only one not brandishing a long lens (indeed I'm grateful to one of the photographers, Dee Maddams, for emailing me her glorious pictures later). So while everyone else is frowning in concentration with their eye to the viewfinder or camera screen, I'm free to beam and half-dance my delight along the hedge. Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian's Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at and get a 15% discount
BBC News
07-04-2025
- Science
- BBC News
Who is the invertebrate of the year?
Have you ever heard of a Milnesium tardigradum or tardigrade? The insect has just received a very unusual award - invertebrate of the year 2025!The contest was run by the Guardian newspaper, with readers putting forward more than 2,000 nominations before these were edited down to a shortlist of 10.A public vote then took place from 2-4 April, and the winner has now been revealed. Competition organiser Patrick Barkham said that the aim of the competition was "to celebrate the spineless species that make up 95% of animal life on earth".Last year's winner was the earthworm, who was crowned the first winner of the UK invertebrate of the year in 2024. An invertebrate is an animal that doesn't have a backbone. Many invertebrates, like insects and spiders, have a hard outer casing called an exoskeleton, which protects their body a bit like a suit of tardigrade, nicknamed the water bear, is incredibly tiny - the size of a speck of dust - but has an extraordinary ability to survive in difficult circumstances. They often live in aquatic and semi-aquatic habitats such as lichen and damp moss. They are found throughout the world, including regions of extreme temperature, such as hot springs, and extreme pressure, such as deep underwaterExplaining why the tardigrade was a good choice to win, Patrick said: "We are drawn to tiny but resilient animals in times of global political turmoil. When we feel small and powerless, the mighty, microscopic tardigrades give us hope. " Now a special team of scientists in Cambridge plan to study tardigrades to find out what we can learn from their unique "superpowers".For example they can survive radiation, by shrinking themselves and completely drying out their cells. Their DNA is then preserved. In this state they requires no food or water and when they wants to rehydrate again, they can get back to their original state in as little as 25 minutes. Understanding this process could help researchers make other materials that are resistant to very extreme conditions - maybe vaccines that don't need to be kept in the fridge, or astronauts that can better withstand the radiation in space. By researching the tardigrades scientists hope they can understand more about how the tiny animals have become so resilient. The shortlist of the final 10 included: 1. The tongue-biting louse burrows in through a fish's gills, clings to its tongue and eats what the fish eats.2. The dark-edged bee-fly pretends to be a bee but is actually a fly that twerks.3. Multi-segmented micro-animal Milnesium tardigradum has survived five great extinction events.4. The flamboyant cuttlefish flashes a dazzling array of psychedelic colours to warn predators they are toxic.5. The giant Gippsland earthworm can grow up to 3 metres in length.6. The all-female microscopic common rotifer has thrived without males for millions of years.7. The fen raft spider walks on water and has been revived from near-extinction in Britain.8. The ultra-rare amber comet firefly emits a burning flash of light, following by a trailing glow.9. The Wētāpunga is a flightless grasshopper that's the heaviest insect in the world.10. The monarch butterfly migrates for 3,000 miles.
