'Charlesing'
Posted by Graeme Lyons , Monday 19 March 2012 20:19
What on Earth is 'Charlesing' you say? Well, it's a word for a phenomenon that happens to every entomologist now and again. When you accidentally crush an invert between the lid and the pot. An unfortunate event at any time but the reason it is called Charlesing is due to a famous lepidopterist's failing eyesight. I think the fact that anyone in the world ever went by the name Baron Charles de Worms is fantastic enough. The fact that this fumbling act was named after the poor chap is, in my opinion, one of the most bonkers natural history stories out there. Unsurprisingly there appear to be some rather crass alternative definitions in the online urban dictionary. I wonder what I will have named after me? How about:
'Lyonsing': the act of blowing ones own trumpet about a natural history find across many social networks in a short space of time.
Anyway. Back to Rye where no Charlesing occurred all day (but there was plenty of Lyonsing). I got to Chris's in the evening and saw some large orb weavers in his window. I didn't recognise them but Chris being a spider-man new them all too well and they were new ones to my list. A rather nice looking thing called Larinioides sclopetarius.
Also in Chris's garden we saw the egg sack of a pirate spider! No pirate spiders were to be seen though but this was not surprising as Chris has never seen one either. Funny looking things and the spiders look pretty cool too if you Google them. Try Googling Ero cambridgei.
We had a quick look on the salt marsh where we saw lots of these little ground beetles which were also new to me. Pogonus chalceus. I end the day on 3806 species.
A splendid name for invert crushing! It immediately reminded me of this rather lovely podcast:
http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2012/feb/06/killer-empathy/
I highly recommend the radiolab podcast btw - somewhat on the same wavelength as this blog I'd say. :)