Tales of the Riverbank

If we just push our way through these giant canes we should find the…splash!...stream. I’ve found the water; my right foot has at any rate. I’ve also found a rather interesting character wandering over this rock here. An eight legged arachnid but not a spider. She is one of the hard backed ticks (like books, they come in hard back and soft back) and I think that she’s a Brown Dog Tick. Although they prefer dogs as hosts (and we have plenty of hunting dogs in this area) they will take blood from any mammal including us. As she can host bacteria that would result in us catching Mediterranean spotted fever she is best avoided – like the plague as it were. I think we’ll press on.

This looks like a nice spot to sit and rest for a while with a little waterfall gurgling beside us. I don’t see any ticks about and fortunately they are not particularly numerous so let’s probe about in the leaf litter and see who’s at home. Ah, a tiny, bright red, harmless bug. Very small, very colourful and very vulnerable; which is probably why it’s hiding in the leaf litter.  Bugs have to grow up just like we do and this one is just a toddler so to speak. Later on it will moult into new clothing, changing styles (much as our children do when growing up) and finally reaching the full adult livery of our old friend the Soldier Bug. Then, of course, it’s off to find a mate and start the cycle again as we saw last week.

Well, we’d better move on but it looks as though we’ll have to crawl through the undergrowth once again. These magnificent plants with the mottled stems and white patched leaves are Dragon Arums which will throw up a huge purple spathe next month. Very impressive and I’m sure we’ll see some when the time comes. Meanwhile, I’ve just dislodged a piece of bark from a rotting tree stump and a couple of woodlice have rolled out. Some woodlice can roll up into a tight ball like this and, like Ernie Wise’s wig, you can’t see the join. These are commonly known as pill bugs in the family Armadillidiidae. The odd thing about these two are those lumpy bits called tubercles. They’re very pronounced and require a bit more investigation as I don’t think that they’re common woodlice. You may think that a woodlouse is a woodlouse is a woodlouse but there are over 200 species in Greece alone and they’re a fascinating group of animals to study.

The river bank is a great place to find rotting logs and tree stumps and gently peeling away the outer bark can often reveal a kaleidoscope of life going on. Let’s have a look under this one. A worm, but not an earthworm. See the way that it’s anchored its backside to the wood and is swishing away at the front? That is characteristic of a Nematode. They don’t have the ability to crawl like earthworms. Did you know that they can eat up to five thousand bacteria a minute? That is, if they don’t get eaten themselves first. There seems to be a fungus growing up not far from its head and there are such things as nematophagous fungi that prey specifically on nematodes; catching them in glue traps or lassoing them. I don’t think that this is one of those though. I think that it is in far more danger from that little scorpion there. I have an irresistible urge to call “He’s behind you!” in true pantomime tradition. By the way, the nematode is definitely an ‘it’ and not a he or she. Like slugs and snails, nematodes are hermaphrodite with both male and female sexual organs.

I think that we can stand up now and if we push our way through these canes we should get back to the track – eventually. It’s like trying to break out of prison isn’t it? Here we are, scratched, torn but happy, back on terra firma and there’s an inconspicuous little flower down by our feet. A little flower with a big history. It has been used to mummify Egyptian royalty, sail Roman ships,  provide a good night’s sleep for European nobles and oil the bats of the England Cricket team. It is Linum bienne or pale flax, the wild ancestor of the cultivated flax that has been used to make linen for millennia and the source of linseed oil. It also gave us the words line, lining, lingerie and linoleum; and to think I almost trod on it.

The Extra Bit

Flax and linen have gone out of fashion a bit but a couple of years ago I was at the Cotswold Show in England when I came across this flax fabric and flax oil resin canoe from Flaxland. I want one. I wonder if they’ll give me a discount on the strength of this link? (They make lots of other marvellous linen products as well).

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LINKS:

Naturalists (the facebook page that accompanies this blog)

See detailed pictures at http://www.inaturalist.org/login  (search - people-stevedaniels-observations)

The Nature of Crete  (Flipboard Magazine)

Cretan Flora

Flowers of Crete;

BIRDS OF CRETE

Crete Birding

Greek Butterflies and Moths

Aquaworld Aquarium

Visit Greece (National Government Tourist Office)

Just When You Thought It Was Safe…

Ichnofossils

Okay folks, that’s our challenge for today. Somehow we’ve got to find our way down there and try to descend once more into the valley. But before we go haring off to find the possible route of descent I’ve just noticed a bit of stone that looks somewhat intriguing. As you can see there are dark patches running through it and if you look closely you can see that they are radiating outwards from a common point below the stone. Take a closer look under the hand lens. There are faint tracks showing that the structure is branched and some clusters of dots, some of which are in pairs.  Both of these tell a story of burrowing creatures on the sea bed in the geological past and it introduces us to the little known science of ichnology¹. Just as historians can piece together a story from ancient human artefacts, ichnologists study these trace fossils, or ichnofossils as they are technically known, to build up a picture of the creatures that made them. Fascinating forensics if you’re looking for a new hobby and serves to remind us that the landscape we’re walking through has a long and detailed history. We’ll leave it somewhere conspicuous and pick it up on the way back. The descent is going to be tricky enough without carrying bloomin’ great rocks around with us.

Sage galls and wasp, Cynipidae

Here we go then, but on your trip down have a look in the sage bushes on the way and see if you can find some galls. I read something the other day which I want us to check out. This is the Greek Sage, Salvia fruticosa, and some years back I was given some “sage berries” by a neighbour as a local delicacy. At the time I didn’t realise that I was eating insects (and neither, I suspect, did they). Anyhow, back in Israel in 2001 it was discovered that these particular “berries” were galls produced by a new species of Cynipid gall wasp². Now, I’ve noticed over the past couple of weeks that there seem to be two different types of gall: one which is produced from the side of the stem and one which is produced at the tip. The question is: are they produced by the same species of wasp or from two different species? Ah, well done, you’ve found some tip types, with and without exit holes. We’ll have a look at them under the microscope later and meanwhile, we’ll keep our eyes peeled for the other type. Incidentally, eating insects as a method of feeding the world is a bit of a hot topic at the moment. A good idea do you reckon or just another way of destroying the planet’s biodiversity?

Scorpion, Mesobuthus and Scorpius constellation

We’ve reached a thirty foot vertical drop which will restrict our downward progress somewhat. Never mind, we’ll go back a bit and try to get around. However there’s a nice fallen pine here in a state of decay so let’s probe the depths and see who’s about. That’s rather a nice scorpion you’ve found there, somewhat larger than the small wood scorpions we’ve been seeing recently. Now I know that I said “There are only about two dozen or so potentially lethal scorpion species out of the fifteen hundred or so that are known to science and, as far as I know, none of them live on Crete.” – (See The Misty Thripti Mountains ) but I’m not sure that this one has been recorded on Crete before. It’s a Mesobuthus, a genus that contains some very venomous species. I’ll just take that piece of wood from you and put him back. Seeing him in that position reminds me; the constellation Scorpius is very easy to recognize at this time of year. If you look to the south for the red star Antares the shape of the scorpion really does look like the one you just found. Well yes, I quite understand, it probably won’t be the last thing you want to look at before you go to bed tonight.

Galatella cretica

How about looking at some pretty flowers by way of something different? I mentioned these Galatella in passing a couple of weeks ago but they’re really in bloom right now and I love the way that they change colour from a pale green to golden yellow and then a deep magenta. The one colour that they aren’t is white which is strange for a plant who’s name begins with ‘gala’ as this is the Greek for milk. I wonder if it’s a diminutive of Galatea, the sea nymph who was in love with Acis and turned him into a river spirit after the jealous Cyclops, Polyphemus, chucked a boulder at him? Even so Galatea still means ‘she who is milk white’ which doesn’t really fit with the flower colour. 

Crag Martins, Ptyonopogne rupestris

We seem to have come full circle and it’s pretty evident that we’re not going to get back down into the valley from this side. Still, we’ll pick up our trace fossil and try from the other side next week. Hang on though, what are those flitting about behind the car? Well I’m blowed – do you remember that patch of mud we drove through just before we parked up? It seems we must have churned it up enough to be useful to a flock of Crag Martins. A few weeks back English twitchers were hammering up and down the motorways to get a glimpse of one of these birds and we’ve got a couple of dozen of them right here. It’s surely too early for breeding but crag martins reuse their nests each year so maybe they’re doing a bit of winter maintenance whilst the materials are available. Could be they even use them as bad weather roosts when the storms hit? As always there are many more questions than answers.

Until next week then – Happy hunting.

1With thanks to Mike Hardman and Dr T via the Natural History Museum, London for identification of the trace fossils as Chondrites, Arenicolites or Diplocraterion and other ichnogenera.

2 New Genus and New Species of Cynipid Gall Inducing Wasp (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae) and New Species of Chalcid Wasps (Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea) from Israel

See all the pictures including insets in detail on Flickr

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LINKS:

Naturalists (the facebook page that accompanies this blog)

Cretan Flora

Flowers of Crete;

BIRDS OF CRETE

Crete Birding

Greek Butterflies and Moths

Aquaworld Aquarium

Visit Greece (National Government Tourist Office)