Forest ranger Frans Kapteijns shares his knowledge of nature every week. Anyone can submit questions via [email protected]. This time Frans pays attention to, among other things, a prehistoric insect in a bedroom, a beetle, a breeding great tit and answers the question of what grows on the carrot stump. Part two of this Stuifmail will be published on Sunday morning.
A prehistoric insect in a bedroom in France
Bernadette Roestenburg was on holiday in France where one evening she came across a prehistoric-looking animal. She sent me a photo. It is not an insect but an animal that belongs to the arthropods. Specifically the centipede family. The name of this beautiful creature is spider centipede. This centipede also does not have a thousand legs, but fifteen pairs, just like the normal centipedes. The maximum number of legs a centipede species can have is one hundred pairs of legs. So two hundred legs in total. Spider centipedes originally occurred around the Mediterranean Sea, but they are increasingly found in the Netherlands. Especially indoors. This small predator often prefers bedrooms and bathrooms. When discovered, they can run away very quickly with their many legs. In their original habitat you can also find them in damp places under and between leaf litter or piles of firewood. They are also very useful animals in bathrooms and bedrooms. Their prey are silverfish, spiders, mosquitoes and flies. They kill their prey with a venomous bite, which is not dangerous to a human, if ever (in rare cases) bitten. Very strange, but in our country such a spider centipede is sometimes confused with an oak processionary caterpillar. That’s weird. Firstly, such a spider centipede can always be found alone and never in a procession, and oak processionary caterpillars live in oak trees. Oak processionary caterpillars cannot survive in bedrooms and bathrooms, because they need oak leaves. In addition, the spider centipede is a very fast animal. Oak processionary caterpillars are very slow caterpillars that belong to the insects. If you would rather not have them in your home, then ventilating bedrooms and bathrooms is the best way to keep them out, as they like moisture and not draughts.
Is this a June beetle, is that possible so early in the season?
Bert Markgraaff has a house with a garden in northern France. There he found an animal that he thought was a June beetle. His question is: is this possible so early in the season? My answer to this is: I don’t think so. Then the other question, is this a June beetle? I think we are dealing with another reddish-brown beetle from the leaf beetle family: the rhizotrogus aestivus. This leaf beetle species does not have a real Dutch name, but you often encounter the name southern leaf beetle. I’ll post a photo of a June beetle below. Then you can see some difference compared to Bert’s photo.
The June beetle is red-yellow in color. The southern leaf beetle has a fairly light yellow front color and often has an orange-red stripe running from front to back across the pronotum. The June beetle has a reddish pronotum and no pointed back. There is little difference in length between both leaf beetle species, they are almost the same size. The June beetle has a length of between fourteen and eighteen millimeters and the southern leaf beetle between fourteen and twenty millimeters. In short, the southern leaf beetle can grow slightly larger. But the most important difference between the June beetle and the southern leaf beetle (rhizotrogus aestivus) is the flight time, the adult period. The June beetle flies in June/July, while the southern leaf beetle flies as early as April/May. Our June beetles hardly occur in the northern provinces, but are quite common in the center and east of the Netherlands. The southern leaf beetle only occurs in South Limburg, but in recent years this beautiful beetle species has been increasingly seen in other parts of our country.
What is on this root tree stump?
Piet van Wegen came across special vegetation on a root stump during a walk. He had never seen that before. In the photo sent by Piet you see a number of green cups on green stems, so we are dealing with lichens here. The name of this lichen is cup moss or cladonia. The word moss in this name is confusing, because cup moss is not a moss. It’s not even related to moss. Mosses are herbaceous, usually green land plants that often have stems and leaves. Lichen actually consists of two organisms: a fungus and an algae. This can also be a blue algae. There are species that form a lichen with the three species mentioned. We call this a symbiosis. In total, we know about 350 species of lichens all over the world, of which about fifty occur in the Netherlands. Pitcher mosses are lichens and are easily recognizable by their shape. Cups, not for drinking but to carry the fruiting bodies of the lichen.
You can find these small shapes on dead wood, on the ground or even on the roof of your shed. If you pay close attention, you will see that there is a diversity of shapes and colors, including the beautiful species of red heather match.
Why so many pine cones in one place?
Henri Schol starts his question by calling me Noeste employee. I would like to receive that compliment! He wonders why there are so many pine cones under a pine tree and hardly any in other places. The trees in the photo are not Scots pines, but Weymouth pines. This tree species originally occurred in North America, but was brought here for timber production. The weymouth pine produces beautiful pale brown wood, but mainly light wood. Ideal for making doors and frames or chests and furniture. This tree owes its name to the British explorer George Weymouth, who lived between about 1585 and about 1612.
The pine cones of this tree are remarkably large and can even grow quite long. The fact that there are so many may have something to do with a good mast year. This means that pine trees, but also other tree species such as oak, irregularly produce many more seeds than normal. This may be due to the fact that there are too many seed eaters, such as squirrels and birds. Then the tree will produce much more than those seed eaters can eat. This increased production may also be related to insect pests or bad weather conditions. In all three of these cases, much more is produced, so that more offspring are produced. This in turn has to do with the maintenance of the species. All weymouth pines can have a mast year, but it can also happen per individual species. I think this is what’s going on here.
Spotted a breeding great tit on March 15, is that possible?
Elly Maas wanted to clean a bird box because she saw poop all over it, so she removed the box from the wall. To her surprise, she already saw a breeding great tit in that box. She put the cupboard back on it. A while later she saw the great tit fly away, but also return. She was surprised; a breeding great tit as early as March 15. In recent years, great tits have indeed started the breeding season earlier and earlier. Especially in gardens, but also in some forests, it has been observed that great tits were already busy at the end of January and beginning of February 2026 regarding the start of the breeding season. During that period, females of the great tit built nests from moss, roots, stalks and wool. They then collect those materials with their beaks and bring that material to the nesting boxes. Once the nests are complete, they immediately start laying eggs in them and breeding starts. This could indeed easily be on March 15th. Female great tits breed alone, but the males are also active. They feed the breeding females. This can be up to sixteen days in a row. Later, when the young great tits have hatched, the males continue to carry food. Especially for the young ones. Although great tits start laying eggs earlier in some places, the peak of egg laying still lies between early April and mid-May.
