Jonathan Kemp; A naturalist in the south of France

  A hike in the mountains to benefit from the beautiful weather at the end of October produced some jewels, including some ….. insect sex. It was so warm that there were still some insects moving around in the grass and in the air, even at altitudes of well over 2000 metres. Looking at my feet I saw a very strange shape moving about amongst the brown grass, and finally when ‘it’ had crawled up high enough it turned out to be a mating pair of Pyrenean mountain grasshoppers (FR. Cophopodisma pyrenaea)   Needless to say the larger female was carrying the male on its back, and finally we had to put them in our hands in order to see what was actually going on. The male was clasped on tightly, and her abdomen was curled up to reach the male’s reproductive organ from which she receives a package of sperm. Slowly. This mating can take up to a day, which is just as well as the male will die immediately after, and even in some case...

  Photo Jane Robinson All it took was a just a splash of rain, and the life that been patiently waiting hidden underground or in some secluded crevice burrowed the way up to the surface as night fell. The first to appear was a Fire Salamander  ( Fr. Salamandre tachetée ), slowly waddling across the terrace, an impressive archaic  looking beast with its bright yellow spots and stripes on the shiny black background skin. The European Fire salamanders are quite big, up to 25 centimetres, and they are known for their longevity; one lived for more than 50 years in a natural history museum in Germany.  A Fire Salamander The brightness of the skin colouring is deliberate; a warning to potential predators that it is not good to eat, an advertisement  of  the toxic glands situated around the head and the skin of the back. I was not going to touch it, they are quite capable of shedding their tails and limbs as a defence mechanism and then growing them back nearly...