SHORT of re-enacting a scene from The Hound of the Baskervilles, you might think there is little reason for prowling the wilds of Dartmoor at night. A naturalist wouldn’t find it so strange, however, given that some of the area’s most intriguing wildlife—including bats, owls and nightjars—is essentially nocturnal. Also among their number is the ash-black slug, as Dartmoor National Park is one of the strongholds of what is believed to be the world’s largest land slug. Africa may have its Big Five, which includes lions and rhinos, but the park’s website states that it is proud to include the ash-black as a member of ‘Dartmoor’s Little Five’, keeping company with the cuckoo, marsh fritillary, otter and blue ground beetle.
It’s possible that other giant slugs await discovery in the equatorial rainforests, but what is certain is that, among the 44 known species present in Britain, Limax cinereoniger is our largest—most measure between 4in–8in, but some clock in at a whopping 12in. A. E. Ellis’s British Snails, first published in 1926 and for 40 years the standard work on the subject, even described them as ‘being up to 10cm to 40cm [4in–15¾in] long’. By comparison, one of the most common slugs, the large black (Arion ater), reaches up to 5½in in maturity.
Denne historien er fra June 08, 2022-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra June 08, 2022-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
