The Guardian reports £4.6m lottery grant to help a range of endangered species, including the ladybird spider, the shrill carder bee, the chequered skipper butterfly, the bearded false darkling beetle, the royal splinter cranefly, the prostrate perennial knawel, and interrupted brome.
Now, be honest, how many of those did you know existed, let alone were endangered? The prostrate perennial knawel, which the Guardian spelled incorrectly (but Arkive didn’t) wasn’t on our radar, nor was the interrupted brome.
The Guardian says that the scheme aims to boost conservation efforts in 150 key habitats and landscapes, and recruit and teach more than 5,500 volunteers the skills they need to study, identify and look after threatened species. Projects include restoring Dorset heathland, bringing back locally extinct plants in agricultural land, creating a network of grasslands in the Cotswolds, managing the Sefton dunes in Merseyside to help species recover, conserving Breckland grass heaths in Norfolk and restoring and managing Northamptonshire’s Rockingham Forest sites. As part of the programme, wildlife charity Butterfly Conservation will reintroduce the chequered skipper butterfly, that became extinct in England in 1975, to Rockingham Forest, near Corby.
Well done the lottery.