LETTERS, NOTES AND QUERIES

Containing this month: 
Jellyfish Identified by John Francis & Simone Bullion
Research in the Garden? by Michael Kirby
What Killed the Dinosaurs? by Nick Sibbett

Jellyfish identified

When I received White Admiral 69 this morning, the cover picture immediately brought back memories of a trip to Brittany in 1965, when I saw several of this species, although I was supposed to be studying the geology of the area at the time! It is Chrysaora isosceles, a member of the Scyphozoa, the group which includes the common jellyfish (Aurelia aurita).

I dug out my rather aged copy of “Collins Pocket Guide to the Seashore” by J.Barrett & C.M.Yonge (1958 edition, reprinted 1965), which states that this species is “not very common”, and occurs mainly on the south and west coasts. It can be up to 45cm in diameter. The same book illustrates the species on Plate 4. I hope Barry Wentworth finds these comments helpful.

John Francis

In response to Barry Wentworth’s query about the jellyfish in the River Blyth in White Admiral Spring 2008, I think it is a compass jellyfish Chrysaora hysoscella. Their brownish V-shaped markings are distinctive. The Marine Conservation Society is running a jellyfish survey, which can be accessed on-line where there is a good downloadable fact-sheet describing the different types. Their interest in jellyfish is because they are the staple diet of the critically endangered leatherback turtle, which occasionally enters our waters to feed. The website is www.mcsuk.org.

Simone Bullion

The editor wishes to thank all the readers who wrote identifying the species of jellyfish.

Research in the garden?

What is your idea of natural history? Is it chasing new arrivals or rarities in faraway places with strange sounding names? There is, of course, a satisfaction in seeing something new or rare and adding a dot to the distribution map. The primary mission of the SNS with its large body of recorders is to document and report the distribution of plants and animals, the rarer the better, but beauty, details of life cycle or ecology are often not mentioned or followed up.

and was author of several books and articles including ‘British Plant Life’ in the the New Naturalist series. In the preface he wrote that he “is himself convinced that much energy is wasted by field naturalists in the study of British plants through undue emphasis being placed upon rarities and ‘new records’ There are so many problems awaiting solution that could be investigated, and many of them solved, by careful thought-out experiments and patient observations on our common plants that it seems a great pity not to direct attention to the fascinating fields for research provided by ‘buttercups and daisies’ ”.

There is still much to find out about common plants and animals by the ‘back garden’ naturalist who inspects the garden daily, walks the local footpaths or takes the dog for a routine walk.

Perhaps the SNS might encourage ‘study’, an important element of its constitution, as well as recording. Perhaps it could find a ‘back garden advisor’ similar to a recorder, but helping with journal sources, relevant equipment and other aspects of ‘careful thought-out experiments and patient observations’.

Michael Kirby

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What killed the dinosaurs?

I was very disappointed to read (White Admiral, Spring 2008) of a theory that dinosaurs had become extinct from disease spread by biting insects. Apart from the obvious facts that there were very many species of dinosaur all round the world, each presumably with varying susceptibility to different diseases, the theory is untestable. It might be right, but as ‘disease’ does not fossilise we will never know. There is nothing that scientists can do to prove or disprove the idea, so it is essentially useless.

The question is even more fundamentally flawed. At the end of the CretaceoNovember 19, 2011 8:59ive percent of all species went extinct, including for example, all ammonite species, all pterosaurs (these were not dinosaurs), marine reptiles, most diatom species and many terrestrial plants. Just questioning why dinosaurs became extinct is to miss the bigger picture. The question being asked should be “why did so many species become extinct at the end of the Cretaceous period”?

Nick Sibbett

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