By Jiminy, the chirp goes on
When the MSC Napoli went aground on a beach off England in January, there concern about lost and damaged cargo as well as pollution.
But British entomologists were also worried about the future of one of Britain’s rarest insects, the scaly cricket.
According to Mid Devon Star newspaper, “dozens of the ship’s containers and their contents ended up on the pebble beach at nearby Branscombe, one of only three sites in the U.K. where the cricket is found.” Possible damage to the beach was compounded by thousands of people who came to the area to take items from the containers.
Britain’s National Trust said bug lovers can breathe a little easier. The cricket was rediscovered on the beach by Adrian Colston, National Trust property manager for Dartmoor, who captured one by setting pitfall traps along the beach baited with cat biscuits, an apple, and “a bit of Cornish pasty.”
Colston found a single female scaly cricket, but the Star quoted him as saying “it is likely a healthy population of Scaly crickets can still be found on Branscombe beach.'
By Jiminy, the chirp goes on
