Woodlouse Oldest County Recordyet!
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v 12 March 1994 2,OOOYEAR OLD WOODLOUSE OLDEST COUNTY RECORDYET! During 1993, Jon Daws had the opportunity to examine mineralised woodlice in materral from trvo archaeologrcal digs irr Leicester's city centre. Someof the material dated from Roman times (50 AD) but the bulk came from the medieval period (pre 1100 - pre 140J AD). Jon describes his findt-ngs- All the woodllce were either !ooay,+ ^i^" rncruurngi -^l '.zQi -^ compost.^^h^^-+ anu.hA uungAr excavated from rubbish or dung heaps. Although recorded at fortY ^i *c TTnfnrf rrnrf o'l rr f ha nlrlo- p-L L5 . UII-I L Urre Lsrl, , lrrE vluEr sites in the county over the last f^,,,,^--^ ..^i-rw from dairv farms material consisted of fragments, !ew ygar > | lrLerrrry !! vrtr verr J rqJ whereas there were several whole :nd qtel'r'l cq. f he si oht of a specimens from the medieval minerallsed telson of P d:l.atatus samples. The extremitles of the from pre-1 100 AD was guite specimens suffered the most damage exciting. There were also several fhrnrrah fho qnrtl-- - ^ mL^v^ Llr!vuvrr Llre rvr urrl9 Vl vvgJ- . rllsr e pieces of pereonite from this were no complete antennae and onIY species with the characterrstic two telsons that proj ected beYond pattern and colour in the same the end of the pleonrtes survived sample and in another from the same intact - ArnadifLidiun species were nar i nd The other species of satisfactory since their telsons do woodlice \.vere f ound in varYing nnl. nra'ianf - from different periods. rrvL YrvJvvs numbers and O ase-ll. us and P scaber were Five species identified recorded in the Roman material and throughout the medieval sampJes. A There were five species identified: vu-Zgrare was recorded 1n reasonable Onjscus aselfus/ PhiLoscia numbers only from the medj-eval n1lc-^rtim armerf i l 1 i rii nm wttl oare samnles and a sincl a P mrr<r:or?rm was trruJvvL uttt t rqr,.vree Porcef Lio scaber and Porcel-l-io recorded from the Roman material frnm fha Hiah Rtrcot cel Iars rlio d.il-atatus. The f irst f our are ! ! vrrr Lf r9 lrf vrr v common and widesPread in a varietY of habitats in Leicestershire Jon Daws v 1993 MEMBERSHIP SURVEY W:-th the LES be:-ng fi'.'e years oId, tnts sur\.'e)/ \rtds car::-ed out to seek members' views of the Society. Thrrty eight f orms (c55t ) rvere message seems to be that menlcers returned from members livinq rvithin \.rould be interested in readans vour and outside the coun[y - Not cont r i-but ion . surprisingly, Lepidoptera, Coleoptera and Odonata were the main interest Maofindc - inAaar fir.1lnq ronreqcnf ed sr:l thnrrahrr.vsvl^ thg j-nterests overal-1 range of covered Of the 63* of members who responded rrirtrr:llrr:lI d tL^! !L--- _-_ yroups, Llra L Lrrcy nnlrr_--_r rrrolir AF,L tlgvgI attended indoor neetings, the main Neusletter O.K.--- reasons stated were that they lived + ^^ € - - Lvu !d! dwdy Or Wefe prevented from Questions about general aspects of attendrng by personal circumstances. the Society's NewsLetters showed that Perhanq of drF^1'arY__*,__ --Y..^_-_anceciani f i a, was there was a high l-evel of the fact that no-one stated that non- satisfaction, rvith most merLbers '-rrnrrf attendance was because of the nature conqi rJeri no th^ f ^r*-+ vvrrJrusr rrrv Lrtg !V!lt(q L I Iql, vu L , of the meetlnqs . gualrty of contents, range of subjects, etc to be good, h'J-th the Agarn, most general- aspects of indoor remainder findinq thenr to be meetings such as the format, venue, acceptable. standard of speaker, etc were considered to be good or acceptable. a\f +h^ -"]-i^^+r qltddoqtorl V! Llle -UUJY9L> ouv\JsJLsu !vIf nt- u!L!{LU^dr-orT ar However, 21* of regular,/occasional cclveradp. I or-a I entomol ooi r--aj ne\{s attendees felt that the level of and freld meeting reports receir.'ed Iocal contr:-but:-on licts Door. most support (558 and 472 respectively) - Notes from j ournals When asked about rhe preferred appeared to be a popular suggestion evening of the rveek for indoor with membersliving in Leicestershire meet ings , Thurscla)/ tr'ds clearly the in particular (418) . rnost popular (12 t icks and no crosses ! ) , with the remainlng order l-\^i ...but more rssues inzanteciJ of nonrrl:ri rr t',ry !sttrg-^ m,.^^^-,,tuE-uay Mondarr r.t^r-^-J--. ---l E-: /.l-,, I .,i j^ vYvurrs)uay dttu rrrLrdy. A wiue ranao af In relation to the number of suggested topics for future indoor ,.^--.^L^*^ ..^*F qn Newsletters issued per )'ear, 64* of wur^JrruP- wgt _ *_-_: l nrarri rlod members reguested three or four issues per year. There is cleariy a and outdoor demand for an i-ncrease from our *ea^^*! +.'^ I --"Fq ncr \/o:r Llnrrprzer ylY-grlL LwU t55Ueo ts/er _ysa! . rrvhs, --, FieId rneetings have al_ways been as frequently mentioned on returns, rel-atively poorly attended in the this is entirely dependent on the past (sometj-mes with the leader copy received from members. As one outnumbering members and vice versa ! ) member commented: and the reasons for thrs have lonq "It is easy to say what f would. been a source of discussion. Th; like, but the content must be driven survey showed that whrl-st many by us, the mernbers. It can be no members lived too far away or were better than our contributions", otherwi-se unable to attend field meetings (29*) , the main reason was Qf ttrftz ran^rl-a 174rt, ranF r' rr u L uu-I a el/vr Lr veL )' PePut4L that most members find it hard to spare the time (48t) . The Occasional- Publicatlons were slmilarIy found to be popular with Again it was reassuring to note that -^aF,^-- --,t +ho Mi nral ani rlnni^-- rrrgrlLUel ) , ArtU Lrru r'rrur vrel/!qvp LC! C1 only one member expressed the view Atlas in particular was praised- The that if field meetings were dlfferent long list of subjects suggested for they would be more likely to attend. future issues incl-uded chrysomelids, Norrarl-fral occ the mOSt popgla1" qrtano<f ort alr:-^o- r.rara *'l ^ i h+^nFi r,^ woodlice, hoverflies, ground beetles, oevveruEu vlrqrrvs- wvLc LrrE IrrLcllsavg site reports, etc. surveying of one site each year (37S) and a desire to learn more from field For anyone contemplating writ:-ng a meetings (e -9. outdoor workshops ) paper on a particul-ar sublect the (29\) " contd p3 - \, Survey contd Glow-worm saga the The preferred times for freld next episode meetings were Sunday morni-ngs (37*) and Sunday afternoons (262). Once again the Rutland NHS has made Crrl'rcnrinf innq I avai-Iable data they have gathered for therr on-going glow-worm survey of 768 of members fel-t that the current the eastern side of the countv. subscription rate (E2.50) represented excellent val-ue for money and 21* Apart from the Rutland and felt that it represented good value Leicestershire records, glows were for money- spotted in 1993 from one new site in Lincolnshire (HolyweIl, just over the When asked what rvas considered to be border) and two new sites in a reasonable subscriPtion rate,4 Northamptonshire with a further four members responded 82.50, 3 suggested being confirmed. AIL but one of the E3 or E4, 1I suggested E5 and 3 Northamptonshire sites were in the members suggested values between Ej Welland VaIley. and €15. Several members commented that the subscription rate should be Eight males were seen in various meet the running costs -1 -^^- --zl q-* rrryinrrq timaq 11q11r'l lrr suffrcrent to f,!dUE) drlU L vA! rvsr , sr seal). n€ i- l-ra Qnn 4ui atrr . rrrv vve ! J as si-ngles and with females. On \' fheir awn thew ^rF vprv difficult tO F:-naIIy, asked "OveraII , hotv ''veLI spot. does the Socretl' f ulf :.1-your needs?", 34t of members responded "\'er)' tvelI", The f irst glorv was on 8 . vi .93 at rrr^ rr RR* gd)Ull4VIY^ ^^- -Lr " "^ 1 1 , u! !resnonfled gJf/vrruuu t wgrr and Bclrro\.,/den Drift and Clipsham. The only one member (38) responded Iast was at the first site on "poorIy". l3.rr:,i_.93. Numbers, when compared r.rith 1992, seemed to be sIightly I would fike to thank all members for down. A cold, wet and windy the time taken in completing the fortnight at the start of .luly seemed survey form and for the manY to check numbers. At Barrowden they constructive comments made, aII of dropped almost overnight from eight rvhrch have been considered carefulIl, - to ane. Although a few started to the full -r ^., q9arrr-^^ i - ^f +^r a f ew rlavs for Anyone wanting a copy of 9rv\a ar Lgr a !sw uqIJ a results of the survey should not short time, numbers never recovered. hesitate to contact me. In Rutl-and f ive ne\r sites were Adrian Rursself recognised with North Luffenham Quarry proving part icularly important with 29 females glowrng on 22.vi.93. Other neir sites rvere Luffenham Heath GoIf CIub (records from LES members), Barrowden Back Road, Clipsham CIay Unusual gall weevil Bank and Seaton Cutting. Leicester- shire records came from Croxton Kerrial Viking Way (9 females on 16-vi-93) and from Stonesby Quarry A swelling of the midr:-b on sheep with a single female on 3.vii.93. In sorrell, found at, of alI places, the latter case, observations earlier Mountsorrell, was confirrned as bej-ng in the season may show the presence population- a- galr^.1 1 causeua:'reazl Lhrr r f ha r^roorli I --pronA of a thriving frumentarjum when the insect emerged a few days after collection on Other sites reported before in this 2 .vi.93 - The identification was series of articles on the county's carried out by Jane McPhaif.