7th October 2025
Storm Amy
Photograph – damage from Storm Amy
Highland Scotland has just been battered with one of the most severe storms in recent records and one which has come earlier than typically in the year. The tens of thousands of houses without power have now had their electricity supply restored after a very real reminder of just how dependent we all are on staying powered up and staying connected. Being concerned and vulnerable to the weather is nothing new, it’s something we share with Pterosaurs from millions of years ago and they had more to be frightened of than having to do without the internet for 36 hours.
Digital illustration
Travel back to around 150 million years ago in what is now part of Southern Germany and archaeologists have for some time excavated fossils, which have confirmed that the area referred to as The Upper Jurassic Solnhofen Archipelago was a population centre for Pterosaurs, the giant flying reptiles from the age of the dinosaurs. It is also believed to be a time of severe weather and extremely intense storms and the flying reptiles, which varied in size but included species with wingspans up to 10 feet (3 metres), would have had to have coped with the conditions just as wildlife has to manage with bad weather today.
So, picture the scene, it is 150,000,000 BCE and a storm is coming. Two Pterosaurs spread their massive four inch (10cm) wings and take off, possibly to fly somewhere for shelter. Yes, these are neonates, they are only just hatched and they are that small, their total wingspans are eight inches (20cm) each and yet it is now believed that they could fly even when they were that young, weeks at most. The flight does not go well, there is no sign of impact trauma but both sustained fractures of the humerus, for humans the upper bone in the arm. This is presumed from the absence of trauma and the similarity to known wind strength fractures in birds and bats to be from the wind forces alone and must then be thought to have fallen in to the sea and drowned, where they sank to become rapidly covered by the mud sediments stirred up by the storm meaning they were very well preserved when their fossils were discovered. There is also reason to think small, almost baby, Pterosaurs will be more intact in the fossil record than adults.
The world and the weather can be a threat, something all living creatures have had to contend with from the dawn of time. We have names for the strongest storms, Pterosaurs probably did not. It is just possible though that if our two ill fated youngsters were together when events began that they looked at each other before they took off, and by sounds, movements or simply shared consciousness, exchanged the thought ‘Oh no, not another one of those’, when they saw the clouds gathering on the horizon.
Digital illustration
19th February 2025
Don’t tell fish they only have short memories, they may hold it against you for a very long time
Digital illustration – Black Sea Bream, Spondyliosoma cantharus
It has long been said that fish, Goldfish in particular, only have memories measured in seconds, possibly as short as three seconds. There have long been grounds to question this. Some fish form stable pair bonds and the ‘who are you?’ moment after three seconds apart on the reef could be awkward. Research has confirmed far more developed memory functions than a few seconds including in Goldfish, the three second hypothesis has for some time been confirmed as wrong. A recent study raises the need for respect of fish cognitive functions even further. The Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour in Southern Germany looking at Sea Bream in the Mediterranean has shown that the fish have a real ability to analyse the dress sense of divers and translate that information into advantageous behaviour:
https://www.ab.mpg.de/660867/news_publication_24151953_transferred
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbl.2024.0558
What the study showed was an ability to learn to recognise divers by the colours of their equipment and know from a developed response which one to follow for food. Two divers were in the water and only one went on to feed the fish. If they wore different coloured sets of equipment, for example the fins, then the fish learned which diver to follow. If they wore identical equipment, the fish were unable to choose which to go with. As one of the researchers notes on The Institute web site, ‘Now we know they see us, it’s time for us to see them.’
5th January 2025
Northern Lights
Photograph – Aurora Borealis, Glen Convinth, Inverness-shire, Highland Scotland
A subtle but beautiful display of the Aurora Borealis above Highland Scotland last night and for the technical the disturbance level was reported at 135nT. For the rest of us there was about twenty minutes when there was a shifting pattern of green light on and above the Northern horizon.
3rd January 2025
Venus
Digital illustration
A special event for lovers of the night in the last few days, Venus was especially bright in the sky and close to the new moon.
23rd December 2024
Just in time for Christmas it’s not just people who have problems with alcohol
Digital illustration
If you were in Sweden and found a Moose (European Elk) with its head stuck in a tree being ‘under the influence’ would probably not be the first reason for its predicament you would think of but you could be wrong. This was one of the reports confirming alcohol use and abuse is not just for people in a new review of evidence by a team cantered on The University of Exeter that has shown that many animals ranging from insects to elephants and primates consume alcohol from natural sources and sometimes really suffer the effects.
Trends in Ecology and Evolution – The evolutionary ecology of ethanol
The review notes that the natural alcohol sources of sugar rich fruits and fermenting yeasts have been around since the Cretaceous period which even throws up a vision of a drunk dinosaur and although there is absolutely no evidence to support this even the slightest possibility is terrifying. It’s also possible that evidence could be available. Dinosaur footprints are still being discovered, what if there were a set where it looked like walking in a straight line was too much of a challenge?
Photographs, text and illustrations ©Nick Sidle, all rights reserved