Animals under logs and stones (2nd edition)
C Philip Wheater, Helen J Read, Charlotte Wheater
London: Pelagic Publishing, 2023 pelagicpublishing.com
ISBN 978-1-78426-417-7
£29.99, 344 pages
Animals under logs and stones is the latest in the Naturalists’ Handbook series from Pelagic Publishing.
When a young member of my family looked at some of the pictures in this book, the immediate reaction was “Yuck!”. It seemed almost instinctive, and I admit that my own reactions vary depending on what emerges when a log or stone is turned up, despite years of home-composting having instilled in me a huge respect for the almost magical role that such creatures have. Perhaps if more people understood the importance of these animals in all our lives, there would be a chance of more “Wow!” and less “Yuck!” when ‘creepy-crawlies’ are encountered. Books such as this have a role in that quest.
As this beautifully produced book says: “Logs, stones and the like provide an interesting interface between the damp depths of the soil and the drier open ground surface, offering refuges for a fascinating array of animals. The communities of organisms that live beneath them are little noticed and even less studied, yet the potential for ecological work here is great. Some of the animals are relatively large and frequently not difficult to find. They exhibit a wide range of lifestyles – from slow slugs or snails to very fast centipedes, from generalist to specialist feeders and from herbivores to carnivores. Ground-surface debris can be found almost anywhere, often presenting highly accessible microhabitats for study and bringing immediate rewards to the curious.”
The book is about more than commonly seen animals such as worms, beetles, woodlice, centipedes, spiders, earwigs and ants. Its scope ranges across 24 major groups with detailed keys, with many photographs and line drawings. It’s an appropriately detailed book which researchers and naturalists will find helpful. It’s not one, however, for young readers to read from, although schools engaged in the DfE’s National Education Nature Park might usefully pop a copy in their resource library. I’m very pleased to have it on my shelves.
………………………………………………………
Reviewed by Professor William Scott