Bloody-nosed Beetle (Timarcha tenebricosa)

As part of the eMonocot project's outreach activities Paul Wilkin (Kew), Ian Kitching (NHM) and I led two monocot walks as part of the Lyme Regis Fossil Festival.

As well as finding around 30 different monocot species in the undercliffs, there were a few invertebrate finds as well.

The bloody-nosed beetle is a large (for the UK) chrysomelid beetle that can often be seen walking rather clumsily along the ground. When disturbed it puts of potential predators by exuding a bright red/orange secretion from its mouthparts (seen here staining my hand).

Lyme Regis Fossil Festival

I have been appallingly bad at keeping things up-to-date here, so this post comes from the distant past (the end of April this year could be a century ago in the blogosphere).

Lyme Regis is famous for its association with many fossils and fossil collectors. Among the collectors the most famous is Mary Anning, whose grave is in the village and can be visited (the organisers of the festival left a wreath on her grave).

As an unofficial delegation to the Fossil Festival (our frieds were more directly involved) we managed to spend a day collecting fossils with Phil from the Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre (a friend of ours who used to work at the NHM).

Walking along the beach from Charmouth to Lyme Regis we collected various ammonites, belem

nites, a bivalve and what is (possibly) a fish skull.

Meanwhile in the marquee there was a hive of activity, stalls selling various fossils and minerals, art and craft activities for children, and a whole bunch of scientists and science educators from the NHM.

As well as various palaeontological activities Alessandro and Martin from the NHM's Entomology Department were there talking about insects alongside members of Butterfly Conservation.

There are some more photos of the event in my Flickr set Lyme Regis 2010.