Photos / Sounds

What

Eurasian Sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus)

Observer

heliastes21

Date

October 5, 2006 06:52 PM BST

Description

Landed on the ship 'Cefas Endeavour' while surveying on the Dogger Bank, central North Sea. Feeding on starlings.

Photos / Sounds

Observer

engelhard

Date

September 26, 1991 03:03 PM BST

Description

My 1000th iNaturalist observation is for Albinaria idaea amabilis, a small land snail only to be found on the tallest part of one mountain on Crete - 1777 m high Mount Kedros. On 26 September 1991, two young and enthusiastic MSc students - Ferry Slik, who is now an authority on tropical rainforest trees, and I - ascended this mountain, and suddenly above 1200 m altitude we found this, until then unknown subspecies, which so far had escaped scientists' notice! It was Ferry who spotted the very first one, while I made notes of the location; but soon we found they were fairly common high up there, living sympatrically with another, widely distributed Albinaria - A. cretensis strigata. We found them also living quite close to the top.

This was part of our MSc studies at Leiden University, during an expedition aimed at mapping the mozaic distributions of the many species and subspecies of Albinaria in central Crete; our inspiring supervisors, Menno Schilthuizen and Edi Gittenberger, were working elsewhere on Crete. The inland parts of Crete, at the time, were still largely 'Terra Incognita' in terms of the distribution ranges of Albinaria, one of the most species-rich land snail genera of Europe. They are small, but many have very attractive-looking shells.

The name 'amabilis' came to me a few days later. I was concerned, at the time, to come up with a name that had already been given to one of the many other taxa within this genus, but fortunately that was not the case. I remember when 'amabilis' came up in my mind: standing on the flank of a nearby mountain, Vouvala, overlooking the azure Mediterranean Sea above which the Paximadia Isles gave the impression to float - a truly lovely sight. 'Lovely', or 'amabilis' seemed suitable as this subspecies has a smaller, more delicate and more finely ribbed shell than A. i. idaea, the nominate which inhabits the flanks of Crete's tallest mountain Ida: "because of the lovely appearance of this little snail, it was given the subspecific name amabilis."

If you'd like to know more about Albinaria idaea amabilis, or about our "Ice Age Hypothesis" on how it reached Kedros from Ida, long ago, in spite of the very hot valley in between, see:
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c69d/1766ad4908ce03c4aa4db4e6a0469ef95130.pdf