The Case of the Vanishing Narwhal

In what sounds like an April Fools story, the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (IWDG) has appealed for the return of a narwhal corpse, which they believe may have been stranded on a North Clare beach in late March.

Narwhals (Monodon monoceros) are normally found in Arctic waters and, if confirmed, this will be the first recorded stranding of such a creature in Ireland. The thing is, it can't be confirmed, because the body of the dead cetacean has been removed in mysterious circumstances.

I can remember the first time I saw a Narwhal in either the Paris or Berlin Natural History Museum (I can't remember which) and being amazed that such a creature existed. For me, it falls into the same category as the duck-billed platypus, i.e. someone's having a laugh and clearly just stuck a fake tusk on a dolphin. But no, these creatures are perfectly real and their strange appearance has led to them being the source of some confusion over the centuries. Medieval Europeans, when presented with the excised tusks, believed them to be horns from the mythical unicorn. 

The IWDG say that Max Halliday spotted the stranded corpse near the Rock shop in Liscannor, Co. Clare (incidentally, that's the birthplace of one John Philip Holland, the Irishman who invented the submarine) on Sunday, March 25th. He reported the strange find to the IWDG on Monday 26th but the message wasn't picked up until Friday the 30th.

By the time IWDG and GMIT researchers were on site, the carcass was missing and all that remained was a grease stain and a lingering smell of rotting cetacean.

According to the IWDG, Max's description is as follows: "a cetacean that was larger than a dolphin at c15ft, with no dorsal fin, but most interestingly with a spiral tusk, about the length of a hurley, protruding from its head".

Liscannor, Co. Clare

Are there any photos? Unfortunately not. "I am absolutely mad that I didn’t take a photo. I am notorious for taking photos all the time, but for some unknown reason I didn’t take the photo. There were two women who were out on a walk at the time that I met than can corroborate what I saw" Max told the Irish Examiner.

Researchers were able to take small tissue samples from the site of the stranding which should be able to confirm if it was indeed a narwhal but they are keen to locate the corpse, not only to identify it, but to ensure it's preserved for posterity at the Natural History Museum.

"If we can prove this, then this is a very important finding, as this is a first for Ireland, bringing to 25 the number of cetacean species recorded in our waters", said Pádraig Whooley of the IWDG.

The group have appealed to people living in Co. Clare who may have seen the animal before it was removed to contact them with their observations and photos. They have also reminded those who removed the corpse that "all cetaceans in Irish waters, dead or alive, are fully protected by Irish law, and a special licence is required from NPWS for anyone in possession of such an animal or parts of".

"This is a potentially significant extralimital record of an Arctic vagrant, which to the best of our knowledge has never previously been recorded this far south."

"Clearly we are disappointed that thus far this animal has produced no photographic evidence which would be a far simpler way of confirming species ID, as male Narwhals are the only cetaceans that exhibit such a tusk, which is actually a protruding tooth on the upper jaw. So this is a public request for assistance and once again is not a 1st of April prank."

Update 05/04/2012: Clare County Council have said that they removed a carcass from Liscannor beach on the 27th March due to public health concerns and it is now destroyed. The contactors who carried out the removal did not report any tusk but that the corpse had already been significantly decomposed at that stage. Perhaps the eyewitness was mistaken is seeing a tusk? Perhaps the tusk was removed prior to the council moving the animal? Looks like this mystery will only be solved when the results of the genetic analysis are known. Stay tuned!


If you saw the creature and/or took photographs of same, you can contact the IWDG on strandings@iwdg.ie


RTE News have reported on the mystery:

Ireland's Geoheritage Uncovered

The National Museum of Ireland, in association with Earth Science Ireland and the Euroscience Open Forum 2012 will host a one-day seminar on Ireland's Geoheritage this month.

The Secrets of Stone aims to increase awareness of Ireland’s geoheritage; what it is, and explaining the diversity of actions and projects in Ireland aimed at making geoheritage accessible to all.

Speakers will include Matthew Parkes, Geological Curator of the Natural History Museum and Sarah Gatley of the Geological Survey of Ireland who will talk on "Geoheritage - why protect a load of old rocks?".

Mary Mulvihill will speak on Earth Science communication - "If the stones could talk" while  Sophie Préteseille, Geologist with the Geological Survey of Ireland will deliver a talk on the growing success of Geoparks.

Patrick Wyse Jackson from Trinity College, Dublin will also give  a talk on "Geological heritage in our museums".

The seminar takes place on Saturday 24th of March and should be of interest to anyone interested in Ireland's scientific history and heritage. For more details on registration, etc. see the Seminar Programme.

Darwin Day Special: Darwin's 'Lost' Fossils

During the Summer of 2011, Howard Falcon-Lang was rummaging around in the windowless vaults of the British Geological Survey when he opened a drawer labelled simply "unregistered fossil plants".

What he found inside was a 'treasure trove' of fossils including some collected by Charles Darwin - who's birth we celebrate this weekend as Darwin Day!

“While searching through an old cabinet, I spotted some drawers marked ‘unregistered fossil plants’. I can’t resist a mystery, so I pulled one open. What I found inside made my jaw drop!” said Falcon-Lang.

“Inside the drawer were hundreds of beautiful glass slides made by polishing fossil plants into thin translucent sheets. This process allows them to be studied under the microscope. Almost the first slide I picked up was labeled ‘C. Darwin Esq.’ This turned out to be a piece of fossil wood collected by Darwin during his famous Voyage of the Beagle in 1834!”

The collection was put together by Darwin's good friend Joseph Hooker while he was employed by the Survey for a short time in 1846.

"The purpose of my visit was to locate some specimens of Carboniferous fossil wood from the Bristol Coalfield", wrote Falcon-Lang in Geology Today. "A rummage quickly turned up the sought after fossils but as we were preparing to leave, my eyes fell on a series of drawers marked ‘unregistered fossil plants’. I can’t resist a mystery, so I pulled one open".

Joseph Hooker

Joseph Hooker (1817-1911) was one of the great botanists of his time and director of Kew Gardens for many years. The slide-mounted samples of fossilised plants in the newly re-discovered collection have the names of donors inscribed on the slides. At least two of the sections of fossil wood were obtained by Darwin during his famous voyage on the Beagle, from 1831 to 1836.

One of the samples (pictured above) comes from Chiloe Island, Chile a place Darwin visited in December 1834 and described it thus: "Chiloe, from its climate is a miserable hole".

There are many specimens from the collection which were not collected by Darwin although understandably given Darwin's fame his samples have stolen a lot of the attention. Other samples are associated with William Nicol, the pioneer of petrography (the detailed study of rocks).

Falcon-Long suggests that the collection probably got lost in the British Geological Survey's storage facility at Keyworth, near Nottingham, UK as a result of bad timing. The Survey didn't start formally registering its acquisitions until 1848. Since then, the samples seem to have been moved around London to various Museums, which at various times held geological collections. It probably arrived in Keyworth in the mid-eighties. Here, a process of cataloguing and photographing is currently ongoing so more fascinating discoveries may yet be waiting around the corner.

You can view a selection from the collection at the British Geological Survey's online museum.

'What a Wonderful World'

David Attenborough's wonderful new series Frozen Planet came to an end on BBC last night with a warning from the presenter that global warming is continuing to have profound effects on the polar regions of the planet. Despite the beautiful imagery, it was somewhat depressing stuff!

To lighten the mood, a remarkable montage of clips from BBC Natural History programming was played after Frozen Planet with David Attenborough voicing Louis Armstrong's What a Wonderful World to great effect. Enjoy! There is already internet mumblings about a Christmas Number One single.

Science Snapshot 12: Wall of Birds

For the next few weeks, along with some of our usual posts, we're posting a series of  'Science Snapshots'.
Science Snapshot was really popular when we ran it last year for Science Week and this will be a continuation along the same theme.

You can see all of the snapshots so far by clicking here.

Today's image is from the Irish Natural History Museum, now re-opened after it's enforced closure. The museum is one of the best such museum in Europe and is often described as a 'museum of a museum'.

Science Snapshot 10: Elephant Teeth Again

For the next few weeks, along with some of our usual posts, we're posting a series of  'Science Snapshots'.
Science Snapshot was really popular when we ran it last year for Science Week and this will be a continuation along the same theme - that's why this is number nine already!

You can see all of the snapshots so far by clicking here.

Some months ago, I asked you to identify a mystery object from the UCC Zoology Museum. Turns out, it was an elephant tooth! Well, here's one in situ in an elephant skull at the Irish Natural History Museum. Makes more sense when you see where it's supposed to be. Doesn't it?

A Gossip on Natural History*

I was delighted to browse through a copy of the first two volumes of the Irish Naturalist recently in UCC's Boole Library. In particular, I was drawn to the regular notices submitted by the Cork Naturalist's Field Club, which had been founded around the same time as the journal. In the first edition, an important message was given pride of place in the introduction:

"As we go to press, we recieve promise of support from the new Naturalist's Field Club at Cork, a notice of the establishment of which will be found on page 24. We heartily wish the Cork society a prosperous and useful career, and hope that other centres in the south and west of Ireland may soon follow the example of that city."

The Irish Naturalist was established in April 1892 by several Dublin-based naturalists as a medium through which those interested and studying nature in Ireland could publish notes and longer articles about Irish natural history.

'the fact that no journal of the kind exists in the country, is sufficient reason for our undertaking'In the first edition, the publishers noted that "the fact that no journal of the kind exists in the country, is sufficient reason for our undertaking". The journal was established upon a wave of both scientific and amateur interest in botany, zoology and geology around the end of the 19th century and the launch happened as a number of Field Clubs were being established around the country: Belfast (1863), Dublin (1886), Cork (1892) and Limerick (1892).

The Irish Naturalist was published for 33 years and is now an important resource for 'naturalists' who wish to study the history of particular species in Ireland and study the development of science in Ireland.

During the period 1900-1922, interest in natural history began to decline, not least because of prevailing political uncertainties and the journal ceased publication in December 1924 (Wyse Jackson and Wyse Jackson, 1992). Almost immediately afterward, the Irish Naturalists' Journal was launched in Belfast in 1925. This journal continues to publish to this day.

The submitted notice in that first edition informs us that the Cork Field Club was formed on March 18th of that year (1892) and that the President, Vice President and other officers were elected. The President was Prof. Marcus Hartog of Queen's College (now UCC) and one of the Vice Presidents was Mr. Denny Lane.

Marcus Hartog had become Professor of Natural History at Queen's College in 1882 (when he was 31 years old) and he held the post for 39 years. Born in London in 1851, he graduated from Cambridge with a first-class degree in Natural Science. He worked on fungi with the famous botanist Anton de Bary, the "Father of Plant Pathology" and inspired Sir Edwin Butler, who studied under him, to pursue a career in mycology rather than medicine (Cullinane, 1995).

Throughout the editions of the Irish Naturalist for the first year, we read a number of 'proceedings' from the Cork Naturalist's Field Club:

Crawford Municipal Buildings, Cork. Now Crawford Gallery

At a meeting of the club on the 22nd of April 1892, the secretary announced "Mr. J O'Sullivan's munificent gift of his herbarium of the Co. Cork flora, containing 7,000 specimens of plants, to the museum of the society". Such was the  number of specimens collected by the club that, later the same year, the proceedings note that "The secretary gave account of negotiations carried out.... with the object of obtaining for the club, space in the Crawford Municipal Building in which to form a museum".

At the same meeting (November 2nd), Prof. Hartog "gave his Inaugural Address, entitled the "Life of a Cell", dealing with the formation and gradual development of the cell in vegetable and animal tissues, illustrating by numerous diagrams, and by the manipulation of pieces of dough, the various shapes assumed, the manner of absorbing food, and the curious process of cell-division".

By the following meeting (Nov 16th) the secretary was pleased to announce that a "large corridor" was now available in the Crawford for museum purposes.

'the following rambles have been taken by members'An important part of all Field Clubs established around this time were the organisation of regular "rambles" whereby the members would depart for some scenic, part of the city or county and observe and collect specimens for further examination. The Cork field club was no different and many of the locales visited in the first year of the club's activity are still visited by scientists and amateur naturalists to this day.

At their meeting on the 6th of May 1892, the members recorded that, "the following rambles have been taken by members of the club: - April 18th to Blarney, conducted by Mr. J O'Sullivan. April 23rd to Goulding's Glen, conducted by Mr. WJ Knight".

However, as with all field work, things didn't always go to plan, as the proceedings of the Summer meetings record:

"The uncertain weather of the past weeks, combined with the fact of many members being on holidays, has had the effect of making the excursions very small, but several have been taken:
June 29th- the club visited Killeagh, for Glenbower Woods...[which] deserves to be better known.
July 9th- a wet morning deferred many, but a party of twelve visited the beautiful grounds of Fota (A.H. Smith-Barry, Esq.), where there is a splendid collection of pines and firs from all parts of the world, the characteristics of which were pointed out by Mr. Osborne, the Steward.

The Orangery at Fota Arboretum, Cork.

July 13th - to Kinsale and the Old Head, including the unrehearsed item of the wreck of the 'City of Chicago'.
July 23rd- to Mourne Abbey, where a small party, conducted by Mr. Sullivan, of Queens's College, had a most instructive botanical ramble.
August 1st- Bantry Bay was visited by some, and botanical and entomological specimens taken.
August 10th- A very pleasant afternoon was spent by some members at Currabinny Woods, Queenstown [now Cobh] harbour, the 'take' being principally entomological".

As these records show, the history of studying the Natural Sciences in Cork and Ireland generally is rich and varied. The Irish Naturalist  allows us to get some idea of what Cork naturalists (both academic and amateur) were up to during this time, when interest in the natural world had reached a peak.

Many of the locations visited by the club in their first year are still accessible for "rambles" and they are still areas where the natural world can be enjoyed and studied at leisure.

In the second edition of the Irish Naturalist, an author notes, while discussing a newly found plant species, that he was "botanizing along the banks of the river Main, Co. Antrim" when he made the discovery. I don't believe I've ever seen the word botany used as a verb before but it conveys the enthusiasm and joy which the writer clearly derived from the study of plants. I shall be using that word more often as I revive the lost art of the "ramble".

* The title of this piece "A Gossip..." comes from the proceedings outlined above, where it was common to see this phrase used as the title for lectures, e.g. A Gossip on the Ornithology of Co. Cork.
 
Sources:
Cullinane, J.P., (1995) 150 years. A history of the Chair of Botany and Zoology (Queen's College Cork - University College Cork). Unpublished report as typed manuscript.

Wyse Jackson, P., Wyse Jackson, P. (1992). The Irish Naturalist: 33 years of natural history in Ireland 1892-1924. Irish Naturalists' Journal 24(3): 95-101