Science
Elusive cricket species found in England
Branscombe, England | October 05, 2008 12:01:13 AM IST
One of Britain's rarest insects, thought to be wiped out after an oil spill last year, has survived the ordeal, scientists say. The Independent reported Saturday the cricket pseudomogoplistes vicentae, which is found mostly on the beaches of the Mediterranean and in only three places in Britain, was feared to have disappeared from Branscombe beach after the MSC Napoli was deliberately beached in January 2007. When the ship ran aground and dumped tons of oil and hundreds of cargo containers, scientists thought the crickets were destroyed by the oil and the stampedes of people trying to get the spilled cargo containers, which valuable items ranging from BMW motorcycles to diapers. The crickets are thought to be doing OK after one of the nocturnal bugs was found Friday. That they have survived at all is nothing short of a miracle. They suffered a triple whammy. There was the oil pollution from the ship and the area where everyone was trampling the shingle was precisely the scaly cricket's habitat, said Adrian Colston, the National Trust's property manager at the beach. Then they cleaned the beach by picking up the shingle where the insect lives, washing and dumping it back. (UPI)
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