The Danish-Greenlandic Environmental Cooperation
Tiny animals of great significanceOnly specialists know about the Greenlandic fauna of small animals. Ordinary people know little about the insects of Greenland. This will be remedied in the first popular book on insects and other small animals in Greenland.
Datichopus groenlandicus.
Popular books on nature of all kinds fill many meters of shelf space in Denmark, and more keep coming. Nature for entertainment. Nature to expand consciousness.
In Greenland, field guides about different aspects of Greenlandic flora and fauna are starting to appear. The books that have come out so far have been about large animals. About birds, mammals, fish. The spectacular animals. But not a word on small animals, which are at least as important - like insects, for example. That's why Inger Hauge, editor at the publishing firm ATUAGKAT in Nuuk, has applied for and received funding from Dancea to put out a book on insects and other small animals in Greenland.
"Our point of departure is that people don't know anything about small land and fresh-water animals in Greenland. Our goal is to create the very first opportunity for interested people, who hike in the mountains in Greenland, to discover what you can find in nature," says Jens Böcher, who is the author of the book. He has spent the better part of a lifetime studying the insects of Greenland, particularly beetles.
There is a great need for field guides and other popular books on nature in Greenland. According to Jens Böcher, the situation is far worse than it was in Denmark fifty years ago. "At the same time," says Jens Böcher, "having worked with Greenland's insects for many years, it is for me a welcome opportunity to take stock of how far we've come. I have, for example, written a paper on Greenlandic beetles. This group of insects offers a lot to choose from. You can tell about their life cycle, their biology or occurrence in a completely different way than with, for example, flies and mosquitoes, which we know almost nothing about."
Odd, that neither scientists - smack - nor ordinary mortals - smack - are well acquainted with mosquitoes and flies. There is, then, a void to be filled by Jens Böcher's Insekter og smådyr i Grønland ("Insects and Small Animals in Greenland"). It is, in fact, a collection of information that is so far unknown to Greenlanders and others interested in Greenlandic nature.
Science for the man in the street
As it is, this information is found in many different scientific papers that are inaccessible to the layman. It is impossible for an ordinary inquirer to get an answer to any question about these animals. For practical reasons, a lower limit has been set at animals that cannot be seen with a magnifying glass. And it is not just a question of identifying and naming the animals. Take, for example, the high Arctic moth. It lives the greater part of its life as a caterpillar. Six years as a caterpillar, a few weeks as a pupa and adult. During its six years as a caterpillar, it spends the winter in places with sparse vegetation, often with almost no snow cover. Jens Böcher: "The caterpillar prepares itself for hibernation by forming sugary substances like glycerol. Equipped with these in its blood, it is able to tolerate its body fluids freezing, and it can survive temperatures as low as 70°C."
Jens Böcher.
The same principle used when you put anti-freeze in the car's cooling system.
Jens Böcher continues: "In the beginning of the seventh season it pupates. Its adult life is very short, about twenty-four hours. As soon as it emerges from the pupa, the fat sedentary female, with reduced wings and flying muscles, sends out scent substances that attract the male. A few hours after mating, it lays about a hundred eggs, often on the abandoned cocoon. None of the adults feed. The male dies just after mating, and the female, as soon as it has laid its eggs."
Like a film manuscript with a good director!
A parasitic moth, Pimpla sodalis. (Drawing: Vita Pedersen)
Tehama bonifatella, the western lawn moth, sitting on a marsh cinquefoil flower.
Jens Böcher is currently making an exhibition on insects in Greenland to increase people, familiarity with these tiny animals. "It is an attempt to get people to understand that it is a world of beauty and incredibly exciting experiences," says Jens Böcher. The initiative came from Georg Nyegaard, who is museum director in Qaqortoq
Insect life
Two of the most well known Greenlandic insects are the two species of bumblebees: Bombus polaris and Bombus hyperboreus. In the field, it is almost impossible to tell the difference between these two bumblebee species, but they can tell the difference themselves.
Jens Böcher: "There is a strange relationship between the two bumblebee species, since the B. hyperboreus is a nest parasite of the B. polaris. You never see B. hyperboreus workers, but B. polaris always produces workers, though fewer the further north they are. In the spring the B. hyperboreus queens come out from their hibernation later than the B. polaris queens do. When the B. polaris queen has built its nest and is starting to rear its larva, the B.hyperboreus queen forces its way into the nest, kills the B. polaris queen and takes over the nest. From then on the B. polaris B.hyperboreus queen and its brood, which only consists of drones and new queens."
The book Insekter og smådyr i Grønland is also part of a new view of nature. So far in Greenland there has not been any demand for insight into the world of insects, but nowadays nature is becoming and more nature-for-looking-at. The city dweller in nature.
"It is my secret hope," concludes Jens Böcher, "that people will go out in their areas and collect insects in their leisure time. That is what our knowledge about insects in Denmark has been built on.
" The high Arctic moth, Gynaephora groenlandica. (Drawing: Jakob Sunesen)
A spider, Larinoides patagiatus.