We heard you wanted to see a picture of a simply enormous snail. So here it is:

This massive beast is Achatina achatina, the giant Ghana snail: native to the forests of Ghana. Their shells grow to a length of 18cm with a diameter of 9cm, however, Wikipedia suggests that certain examples have been surveyed in the wild at 30x15cm, making them the largest extant land snail species known.

These snails and others related to them are sometimes a right pest when they are introduced outside their native range, eating crops and even gnawing the stucco off buildings. However in the West they make popular pets, apparently. Though probably not amongst lettuce-enthusiasts.

Video of Gary the giant snail taking a shower after the jump...

Read the rest...

The small learned society is a mainstay of British amateur natural history. Continuing the work of the gentleman-naturalists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, amateur enthusiasts today still provide a formidable body of data and research on the subject of British wildlife.

I've been lucky enough to sit on both sides of the blanket-covered table at many such local societies over the years, be it a horticultural society, a natural history society, or even a women's institute. It is often after the lecture (when I'm giving it, anyway) that the interesting part begins; and I am struck by how some members of these modest institutions seem to be the storehouse for a unique depth of local knowledge and wisdom that cannot readily be accessed any other way.

That enjoyably fascinating - and slightly scary - feeling the novice gets when talking to someone with a wealth of knowledge and experience was also engendered in me when reading Faith Anstey's newly-published book, "Flowers in the Field, how to find, identify and enjoy wild flowers".

Read the rest...

The UK's new coalition government has published a massive shopping-list of promises, calling it the Coalition Programme. It's a bit like a manifesto, with the added curiosity of being issued after an election rather than before. If you're at all interested in government and what it does in the UK then you might want to take a look at it.

There's all sorts in this document, from immigration policy to the hunting ban, and everything in between. So come with the Ranger to take a first look at a few selected policies which might impact on his area of work over the next five years.

Read the rest...

Rangers today come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and it seems like an awful long time ago that the profession was dominated by ex-servicemen smoking roll-up cigarettes and making off-colour jokes. So it was with some surprise that this Ranger looked at the statistics provided by Lantra's Women and Work programme: in what they define as the environmental conservation sector there are 2,400 businesses in England. The sector employs 17,000 people of whom 60% are male - and whilst I certainly would have guessed 50% if I'd been pressed, I suppose 60% isn't hugely inequitable, especially when you compare it with some other sectors in the land-based industry: 89% of employed fencers, for example, are male. In all honesty I'd have expected it to be even higher.

The Women and Work programme is a funded scheme to give training grants to women in industries where they are under-represented. It is administered by Lantra in the land-based industries, and has had quite a bit of success across the industry, including countryside management and environmental conservation. Read on to find out more, including how to take advantage of this scheme.

Read the rest...

It might have been a while ago but if you ever studied biology at any kind of advanced level the name Drosophila will have special resonance for you. It is one of the very select group of organisms whose scientific name has made the unlikely transition to natural language. Whilst you could, in theory, call it a fruit-fly, its ubiquity in genetics laboratories and literature means that you'd be in a minority if you did. Since 1910 when it was first used for studying the then-neonate subject, the fruit-fly Drosophila melanogaster has been called simply Drosophila, with no need for elaboration.

For some time now the staid world of taxonomy has been pondering a proposal that might have an impact on the celebrity status of this little fly: Drosophila may soon no longer be Drosophila. In a case which has already been compared to the controversy over the reclassification of the former planet Pluto, it now looks as though a new name for Drosophila is inevitable.

Read the rest...