The Living Isles

[bugboy]

I've been informed by someone in the know that tonight's episode features quite a few butterflies. Given the recent (and near future) weather patterns were currently suffering, it might just be the tonic!

[bugboy]

if you didn't see it, there was some excellent footage of Large Blue cats feasting in the ant nests.

[PhilBJohnson]

Large Blue Butterfly
Life cycle:
Are you sure that the Large Blue Larvae ate the whole colony of ant larvae, as widely broadcast recently?
If so, how many might that have been on average?
Recently, there was no ant specific species given, that the Large Blue had slowly evolved with.
Was the original English Large Blue which scientists did not quote know enough about to save it, a slightly different sub-species from that in Europe?
Why was Sweden not more specifically mentioned recently, as the Country a re-introduced species of Large Blue was officially imported from, to the UK?

UK butterflies Generally.
When many (or most) UK butterfly species had been dramatically declining in numbers recently in the UK, why did some fundamental science for butterfly species wellbeing and protection, appear to get left out of public broadcast and left in-house with specialised Organisations, that might not have been able to do enough on their own, to prevent more declines, in time, over time, with a climate that had changed?
One thought was, that “closed science” might be lost science by someone who had it, that passed.
#ButterflyConservation

[Mark Tutton]

A brilliant presentation about the Large Blue lifecycle, and the research that enabled it, from Professor Jeremy Thomas himself here https://youtu.be/xDclp8C1t5E