Mantises and weasel-eyes

Posted by Graeme Lyons , Friday, 29 August 2025 10:29


On Saturday morning I became aware that Tony Davis had found a population of Praying Mantis (Mantis religiosa) near Ventnor, on the Isle of Wight on the previous day. So soon after this I booked a ferry and some accommodation for one night on the island as the tides were pretty good. By 10.30 am on the Sunday, Mark Telfer was showing me these incredible animals. Almost certainly a natural population that must have arrived at least a year ago by jumping the Channel. We found seven in about an hour and a half, four females and three males. Two of the females were clearly gravid. Here's a shot Mark took of me with one on my hand! 



It was insanely cool to see these animals, even if all these new species are coming here due to climate change. I then had two days left on the island and a few fairly good low tides, so I thought I would make myself useful and do some recording. I wasn't expecting to get a mollusc new to the Isle of Wight! Anyway. before that, here are the rest of my favourite shots of the mantises.


Before I found the first mantis, I netted this Anania verbascalis, I think this is only the second time I have seen it. A scarce pyralid that feeds on Wood Sage.

Boat Bug Enoplops scapha seems to be common there!

Just as we were leaving, I stumbled on a small patch of Bastard-toadflax, which amazingly had the shieldbug Canthophorus impressus on it! It was an unforgettable hour and a half on that hillside. A huge thanks to Mark for his time and all his gen.

Before the marine stuff though, I got quite a few plant lifers. First off the super rare Field Cow-wheat, just about still in flower.


A trip to a certain valley to see Wood Calamint!



I bumped into John Poland who was with Paul Stanley, so I indulged in some 'grotany' around Ventnor Botanic Gardens and saw loads of awful plants, like this Amaranthus blitum.


But the sea was calling me and I was desperate to get some snorkelling and rock-pooling in at Bembridge Ledges. I only found three nudibranchs on this trip and none were species I hadn't seen before. Polycera quadrilineata were in the Wireweed straight under the lifeboat station.

I assume this is an adult Aeolidiella alderi. Much smaller animals were common here in the spring but I only saw this larger one this time. Very high up the shore.

And Edumndsella pedata is rapidly becoming the species I see most frequently (although I have not seen it in Sussex yet).

I did get a couple of new molluscs, including a living Warty Venus Venus verrucosa.



But then, I stumbled on something rather exciting. This bizarre bivalve. It was moving around like a sea slug but with its (vestigial?) shell on top of its body. Imagine opening your glasses case and plonking it on your bonce, and you get the idea. I was impatient to find out what it was being tired and away from my books, so thank to Nathan Jackson for his help (by the way, if you want to lose the top spot for all your marine taxa groups on the PSL website, then encouraging a very keen naturalist with a passion for marine life to sign up is the way to do that). It's Galeomma turtoni and it seems to be new to the Island. In fact, the only records I can find away from the Channel Islands are from my local patch The Pound of all places in 2018 and according to Roger Herbert it was found by divers in Portland Harbour. Oh and it's also been found on he Isles of Scilly. How cool! it has the ridiculous common name of Turton's Weasel-eye.



Here's a couple of Turton's Weasel-eyes, this really doesn't sound right to me. Oh no, I have gone down a rabbit-hole. Is the pleural of weasel-eye, weasel-eyes or weasel's-eyes? That sounds even weirder. Snap out of it Graeme, it's not important!

It was a whirlwind few days but a great deal of fun. I added 20+ species I think. Sunrise at Bembridge Ledges is just sublime!

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