Redgrave and Lopham Fen, East Anglia

A short write-up/review of my recent visit to Redgrave and Lopham fen on the border of Norfolk and Suffolk. A rare river-valley fen, it is a unique habitat and on of the UK’s very few homes to the great fen raft spider, an awesome semi-aquatic spider. It is also home to a great deal more natural beauty and biodiversity besides and so I heavily recommend a visit.

Wicked Problems: Trophy Hunting

A look at the complex issue of trophy hunting and conservation – a very wicked problem with no easy solution.

Dungeness – Weird and Wonderful

A look at Dungeness Nature Reserve, an amazing area of unparalleled biodiversity in the UK, full of moths, butterflies, bees, wasps, flies and beetles, a unique habitat and ecosystem that begs to be walked around and explored.

Caturday Special: The Ocelot, Leopardus pardalis

A look at one of the most beautiful coated cats in the world, the ocelot. Small, but not too small, these medium sized cats range from the USA to Argentina, making their living mostly eating small prey and hiding from just about anything else. An adorable cat that was once overhunted for its pelt or to be sold into the pet trade. These things are so damn cute.

Caturday Special: The Sand Cat, Felis margarita

The sandcat, one of the cutest and most amazing cats on the planet. This small, adorable bundle of fluff has been known to eat desert monitor lizards its own size and venomous snakes – although mostly it eats small rodents, lizards, birds and insects. They rarely drink, using their efficient kidneys to obtain moisture from their prey. They’re just unbelievable, something this cute should not be so tough but they are hard as nails and can teach us a lot about how we should adapt to our environment rather than unsustainably developing techniques and technologies that force our environment to adapt to us.

Be more sandcat.

Caturday Special: The Leopard, Panthera pardus

With this study of the leopard we have written about every extant pantherine. There are no more big cat species of that genus left to cover. The leopard is a beautiful, generalist, opportunist species adapted for a wide variety of habitats, explaining it’s wide distribution. It is a cat also associated with the Greek God Dionysus, the God of wine.

Caturday Special: The Marbled Cat (Pardofelis marmorata)

A look at one of the world’s most elusive but beautiful cats, Asia’s marbled cat. A small cat that lives and hunts in the trees (arboreal) and has exceptionally long canine teeth for reasons we will discuss.

Top Ten Hated (But Misunderstood) Animals – 5- The Plateau Pika (Ochotona curzoniae) and the European Mole (Talpa europaea)

A lengthy article talking about the similarities in treatment between the European mole (Tapa europaea) and the Plateau Pika (Ochotona curzoniae). They are both a species vital to earth and soil health that benefit and enrich their environments that are considered a pest and a nuisance and are often killed for little or no reason. We explore the animals themselves, their lives and habitats, how our opinions of them were formed and similarities to our behaviours with other species too, like prairie dogs and badgers. We also focus on the ability of humans to form opinions, ideas or myths about animals and also how they can change over time. In the case of these species, changing for the negative, but it also means the reverse is true.

Top Ten Cats #2 – Cheetah, Acinonyx jubatus.

One of my proudest moments in academia, if not my proudest moment, you know not having graduated or won a Nobel Prize or anything, was in ‘Scientific Communications’ class when I gave a presentation about the cheetah. Now let me explain a few things. For one thing, I’m autistic. Standing under bright lights talking to