This month’s blog was kindly contributed by Tara Pirie, postdoctoral research fellow, and Amanda Callaghan , Lecturer in Zoology and Curator of the Cole Museum.

How do you move a museum? With a lot of help from experts and volunteers!

With 3000+ specimens including taxidermy, skeletons, fossils, and models, not to mention the extensive fluid collection with preserving agents which can be flammable or toxic, it is a mammoth task to relocate an entire museum 600m across campus! The museum in question is the Cole Museum of Zoology, founded by Professor Francis Cole in 1907 to teach zoology and comparative anatomy to undergraduate students. Originally housed at the London Road campus, the entire collection had already moved up from London Rd to the Physiology, Biochemistry and Zoology Building (thereafter AMS) on Whiteknights campus in the early 1970s. It has been used extensively for teaching zoology for 115 years at the University of Reading.

Planning the move to the new Health and Life Science building started as early as 2015, with plans and ideas evolving as the building plans changed. The Cole Museum would change from one with 35 cases to a smaller space containing only 14 new cases (plus 3 from the old museum). Before a single bone was packed, the curator, Professor Amanda Callaghan, was engaged in planning the museum concept from which the design and content would evolve. By early 2019 the concept of the new Cole Museum became “Life adapts and evolves” and Amanda began writing content for the 14 new cases in earnest. Work on the new bespoke cases and with a designer was halted by Covid-19 in early 2020. Despite the pandemic, the museum slowly emerged and both cases and backboard panels were in place by the end of 2020.

Before the museum design and content was even begun, we knew we had to pack up the entire collection, beginning with items on display in AMS. Staff and undergraduate volunteers had training from conservator Nigel Larkin on how to pack specimens from the small and delicate, through to the bulky and heavy. We had to source packing materials and decided to be as sustainable as possible, finding discarded items from Warp-It, other museums, and private donations; Tara even re-used the bubble-wrap from the new cases! The University’s museums conservator Fred van de Geer made bespoke boxes for some of the larger skeletons and fluids, and sourced second-hand ones for others. Meg Cathcart-James organised a system for identifying specimen location during each phase of the packing, move and unpacking, to ensure we didn’t lose a anything.

Prior to packing, specimens were conserved; fluids were checked for any leaks, topped up if required and lids were replaced by Claire Smith and Rachel Smith and their volunteers. Taxidermy was brushed and vacuumed (we kid you not!), skeletons were cleaned, fossils were dusted, jars were painted or paint was removed; we all pitched in with whatever was required each day; volunteers actually queued to have a go at vacuuming an elephant’s ear!

One of the move highlights was removing the large specimens such as the python and spider crabs from their wall hangings and rehousing them on pristine new walls. Our iconic 19^th century Asian elephant named Norman had to be dismantled and was lovingly and carefully strapped to a frame for his short journey to HLS. Once specimens were safely packed in boxes or crates the next task was getting them out of the building via a purpose-built ramp and across campus in a van to the new building! On the day of the move a food market appeared, without warning, in the car park adjacent to AMS meaning we had to navigate paths to access the building.

It was so exciting to see the first specimen in position which was the false killer whale, now hanging in Café Trilobite (Do Look Up) and it really felt we had finally made it after all the years of planning and packing! New specimens include three models by Bob Nicholls, including a large protoichthyosaur on the wall, as well as our camel who has been in hiding for decades, covered as he was in a thick grime. Thanks to Nigel Larkin he looks wonderful.

The Cole Museum is an undergraduate teaching collection and although is a fascinating museum for children of any age, it has not been designed for the general public. The text has been written to allow our undergraduate students to use it as a resource throughout their degrees, supporting zoology and biological science modules. Aside from the taxonomy of the specimens, you will find evolutionary and adaptation information which we hope both students and visitors alike will find interesting and useful!

This may seem like the end, but we have not finished moving. The HLS display is approximately 20% of the total collection. We are currently packing, organising and moving the rest of the collection to new storage facilities which we hope will be finished this year. The Cole team may be small and part-time, but we are mighty and we couldn’t have got this far without the invaluable help from all the museum volunteers and supporters; thank you!

For more information about the museum and opening to the general public please visit: https://collections.reading.ac.uk/cole-museum/

Many thanks to Tara and Amanda! If you’re interested in contributing to the Whiteknights Biodiversity blog, please email v.l.boult(at)reading.ac.uk

This month’s blog was kindly contributed by Chris Foster, Lecturer in Animal Ecology and Chair of the Biodiversity Working Group.

As we count down to Christmas, colleagues are busy once again with the brilliant Advent Botany series. With a little thought, anyone can think of plants that evoke the season, from spruce or fir Christmas trees to the cinnamon, ginger and cloves that spice our festive treats. Advent entomology is perhaps a harder sell, with few obvious associations, but I’d like to propose a few insect stars of the season – some more tenuous than others.

You certainly don’t expect to see clouds of insects on the wing at this time of year since many adult insects are short-lived, future generations persisting through the cold months as motionless eggs or pupae. For example, populations of the White-letter Hairstreak butterfly, occasionally reported on campus in the adult form in the summer, can be detected in winter by searching for eggs near the tips of elm twigs. They wait, still lives, for the right light and temperature cues to resume development in the spring. Other species keep developing right through winter as active larvae, especially in soil and leaf litter, which provides some insulation against fluctuations in temperature.

But there’s another group of species that are my first Christmas champions: those that wait out the winter in their final, glittering adult forms. The diverse ornamental conifer plantings on Whiteknights campus provide excellent winter habitat for these, from hirsute cypress dwelling ladybirds to the Juniper shieldbug, whose shining forewings are veneered like an old walnut dashboard. I wrote about the joys of searching in conifers in a short piece that was included in the Wildlife Trust’s Seasons series back in 2016, but it is only recently that we’ve contemplated a more systematic look at the use of ornamental trees on campus by overwintering insects. This year a Biological Sciences project student is collecting some data, and there is lots of potential for future student work either through formal research projects or simply getting involved with ad hoc recording of insects on campus.

Once the sun sets over our Christmassy conifers, my second festive insects come into their own. A small handful of moth species are active as adults in the heart of winter (as are surprisingly many small flies – midges and gnats), seeking out mates and laying eggs. One is the December Moth, a gorgeous fuzzy animal whose elegant brown cloak is edged with gold. The Winter Moth is, by comparison, unremarkable in appearance but notable for its unusual flightless females and important place in woodland food webs. Winter Moth eggs hatch in spring right around budburst, and the caterpillars provide vital nourishment for blue and great tit chicks. This link is threatened by climate change, which through phenological asynchrony risks separating peaks of caterpillar abundance and hatching dates of the chicks.

Finally, some insects that are difficult to find at Christmas still deserve a place in our festive fauna. The Holly Blue butterfly, for example, has two generations that feed on Holly and then Ivy – what could be more Christmassy? The Red-green Carpet is another we should be seeing on cards or decorations, with its attractively mossy green wings streaked with a red blush. Nowadays we see few insects represented in seasonal culture, but this charming animated film (see video below) from 1913 has beetles and crickets receiving gifts from Father Christmas before skating on a pond. With the looming threat of insect population collapses, maybe there’s no better time to revise Christmas as a time for celebrating the charm of our six-legged friends.

Many thanks to Chris! If you’re interested in contributing to the Whiteknights Biodiversity blog, please email v.l.boult(at)reading.ac.uk

Guest blog by Jonathan Gregory, National Centre for Atmospheric Science, Dept of Meteorology, University of Reading & Met Office Hadley Centre

I grew up in Welwyn Garden City, which has plenty of trees of many kinds. As far as I remember, I’ve always found them beautiful, as individuals and in landscapes. I learned to recognise ash, hawthorn and apple from the gardens of the houses I grew up in, my parents planted a tree (a silver birch) in ’73, and oaks (older than the town) were familiar from the streets of the neighbourhood. During these years most of the mature elms of Britain died, including a row of them not far from my junior school. I was sad about that, but too young to miss the sight of them in the countryside.

Some time in my twenties I was stimulated (by not knowing what a hornbeam is) to learn to recognise native and commonly planted tree species. It was an unexpected revelation, like learning an alphabet, which turns squiggles into meaning. Groups of trees turned from undifferentiated vegetation into collections of distinguishable familiar characters. A friend asked me why I wanted to know their names. One reason is curiosity about the surroundings. Another is that trees are sometimes used to evoke landscapes in descriptions, for instance a beechwood, or what Tolkien had in mind when he compared individual ents to chestnut and rowan trees. I want to recognise trees from a distance; it’s fun to try to name them as you pass by on a train.

A variety of trees in the landscape, on the north lakeside

Soon after I started working at the university in 2003 it occurred to me that Whiteknights campus could provide plenty of examples for anyone else who wanted to learn common trees, especially if some of them were identified (with labels or by photos), but I did not make time for this project until autumn of 2019. Since then I have spent many enjoyable hours taking photos and compiling a virtual arboretum, which aims to picture, identify and map a few individuals, in each season, of every species represented, along with details of leaves, bark, etc. The project grew as I discovered, with some excitement, what a huge diversity of trees we have. Rupert Taylor, Head of Grounds Maintenance, helpfully corrected misidentifications I had made because I had not imagined that there were many non-native species looking quite like native ones e.g. Fraxinus angustifolia and F. excelsior. (I expect that confusing this pair seems inconceivably careless to experienced botanists—and I also made a few more embarrassingly serious mistakes.)

I would welcome any comments and corrections, adding to useful suggestions I’ve already received (make the site mobile-friendly and in PDFs for download, include high-resolution images, link to web pages with species information). The X-rated virtual arboretum shows the trees I’ve not identified, in which I’d be grateful for help! I’d also be happy to know the location of any white poplar, downy birch, sessile oak, common whitebeam, crack willow and common juniper. I’ve appreciated encouragement from the Friends of the University of Reading, Alastair Culham and Jonathan Mitchley of the School of Biological Sciences, and my colleague Benoît Vannière.

Metasequoia glyptostroboides, the dawn redwood

Many thanks to Jonathan for providing this entry! If you’re interested in contributing to the Whiteknights Biodiversity blog, please email v.l.boult(at)reading.ac.uk

As staff and students at the University of Reading, we are lucky to work and study amongst the wilderness of Whiteknights campus. But, if you’ve ever thought of travelling just a little further afield for your biodiversity-fix, read on…

Just a 10-minute bus ride south of Whiteknights, you’ll find Langley Mead – just over 18 hectares of countryside sitting on the banks of the river Loddon. The area is owned and managed by the University of Reading as a Suitable Alternative Natural Greenspace (SANG). What does that mean? It starts with local development. In the Spencers Wood and Shinfield area, a large number of residential properties have been built in recent years. The growing residential population raised concerns that the nearby Thames Basin Heath Special Protection Area would see increased footfall and pressure on these habitats. Langley Mead and other SANGs have therefore been established to provide an alternative greenspace for people to enjoy.

On top of the biodiversity benefits Langley Mead offers as a SANG, it has also become part of an ecological restoration project. After years of intensive agricultural use, active management of the site since 2013 has been working to restore the lost wildlife-rich landscape that once existed here.

Prior to agricultural intensification during the 20^th century, the Langley Mead site was a typical “ancient” landscape, comprising hedgerows, wildflower meadows, pasture, common land and coppiced woodlands. This low intensity management would have accommodated far more biodiversity than the agricultural landscapes common today.

Current management practices at Langley Mead are trying to restore this ancient matrix and the biodiversity it supported. Efforts have included the spreading of wildflower-rich green hay imported from nearby surviving species-rich meadows and sowing wildflower seed mixes, installation of bird boxes (including barn owl boxes), creation of habitat piles and even an otter holt. New woodland has been planted in place of a long-lost ancient coppiced woodland, hedgerows have been restored, and a small herd of cows are regularly employed to carry out conservation (low intensity) grazing on the site.

As a result of these efforts, Langley Mead now boasts an abundance of plant and animal species, including some that are rare in Berkshire or of wider conservation importance, and records are growing year on year. The wildflower meadows provide a particular highlight in spring and summer, but you can find important plant species all year-round if you look hard enough.

You’re almost guaranteed to see a number of bird species – including the local red kites, buzzards and woodpeckers, and if you visit early enough, maybe even the local kingfisher – but don’t forget to look out for the smaller things too, like the Robin’s pincushion shown below! If you’re visiting Langley Mead at dusk during the summer, keep your eyes peeled for breeding barn owls searching for food over the meadows, and head to the Millworth Lane entrance to witness the bat super-highway!

So, if you fancy a change from the wilds of Whiteknights campus, Langley Mead is well worth a visit. Entrance to the site (and parking) is free and it’s only a short drive south of campus (or why not be extra environmentally-friendly and jump on the number 3 or 8 bus towards Shinfield or Spencers Wood from the SportsPark bus stop?). More information about the site can be found on the Langley Mead website: www.langleymead.co.uk