Cylchgronau Cymru

beauties that careful management makes available. We are pleased to be able to say that in general, the islands are doing well at the moment References Lockley, R M. 1953. Puffins. J. M. Dent London. Sutcliffe, S. J. 1986. Changes in the Gull populations of SW Wales. Bird Study 33, 91-97. S. J. Sutcliffe, Reserve Warden, Skomer Island, Marloes, Haverfordwest, Dyfed. The Total Number of Species By extrapolating from habitats in which the numbers of species are well documented to others where numbers are poorly known, and taking into account the rate at which new species are being discovered, Tom Lovejoy of WWF-USA has estimated that there are between 3 and 10 million species of animals and plants in the world today, including, of course, all deep-sea and other marine species. This may, however, prove to be a gross underestimate, since some quite recent research in the rainforests of Panama, Brazil and Peru using non- persistent insecticide smoke in the canopy, suggests that there may be as many as 30 million arthropods alone. So far only around a million and a half animal and plant species have actually been described by scientists, two-thirds of them in the temperate regions, where relatively fewer species exist An additional 10,000 new species are being discovered and described each year; no fewer than 80 new flowering plants have been found in the State of Utah alone in the past fifteen years. At this rate it will take some 1000-1500 years to describe all the remaining species. However, man-made changes are likely to bring about the extinction of between 15 and 25 per cent of the world's species within the next 20 years. Most of these extinctions will occur in the species- rich tropical eco-systems, especially rainforests and cloud forests, and will involve many species that may never be discovered at all. Indeed, a great many undiscovered species must already have become extinct, especially in the rainforests and their rivers, and on oceanic islands. A major genetic resource has thus been lost and is continuing to be lost even before we have a chance to asses its value, and this does not just include a myriad of insects and fungi, but freshwater fish of potential food value and higher plants that might yield life-saving drugs. The vertebrates are the most completely known class of species, animal or plant with an estimated total of almost 39,000, including approximately 4237 mammals, 8580 birds, 6054 reptiles, 2760 amphibians and 19,350 fishes. The fishes are the least known group and are believed to have the largest number of undescribed species awaiting discovery. The vertebrates of the Holarctic, the north temperate zone that covers Europe, the USSR, China, Japan and North America, are the best known to science, with China as a relative lacuna. There are very many more invertebrate species, with 1.4 million already described and many millions more undiscovered More than half of all known invertebrates are insects, the largest class in the arthropod phylum. The flowering plants, numbering some 280,000, are the best known class of plants; even so, a substantial number of species await discovery and scientific description, although of course many of these are well known to tribal people. Indeed, Professor R E. Schultes, Chairman of the SSC Ethnobotany Group, believes there may be as many as half a million flowering plants in the world. About 160,000 flowering plant species grow in the tropics, half of them in Latin America, of which at least 10,000 are believed to be known to science. Numbers of bacteria, algae, fungi, lichens, mosses and ferns are very much greater. Another way of looking at the importance of species in the biosphere is to calculate their biomass, the total weight of living organisms in any area. Thus the vast herds of wildebeest, zebra and other ungulates that migrate through the Serengeti Plains of Tanzania have been estimated to have a biomass of between 7 and 11 grams per square metre. Yet in the Malaysian rainforest the biomass of termites alone is between two and six times as great as that of all the mammals and birds; and the biomass of earthworms in an orchard in eastern England has been estimated at 287 g/m2, or between 25 and 40 times as much as the Serengeti ungulates. So it is all too easy to underestimate the importance of invertebrates in ecosystems. Elephants should be contrasted, not with mice, but with termites and earthworms, which form the animal base of the ecosystem whose summit is the elephant. Of course there are plant and fungus bases and summits too, from mycorrhizal fungi to baobabs and redwoods. Extract from: Richard Fitter. Wildlife for Man. How and why we should conserve our species (Collins, London, 1986). The Nine Huntings Y Naw Helwriaeth The Welsh manuscript known as Y Naw Helwriaeth (The Nine Huntings) contains much material that is of zoological interest, including some notorious puzzles such as the bear, the climber, and the cock-of-the-wood A partial English translation appeared in Colin Matheson's Changes in the fauna of Wales within historic times, in 1932 (National Museum of Wales), but no complete English translation appeared until the very recent re- examination by William Linnard, which identified this curious manuscript as a confection of the mid-sixteenth century, compiled by Gruffudd Hiraethog, and containing material culled from French and English lists of beasts of venery and the chase, extracts from the Welsh Laws, and a literal translation of a small part of The Book of St Albans (1486). The complete English translation of Y Naw Helwriaeth is given below. For detailed discussion of the text, see W. Linnard 'Vie Nine Huntings: a re- examination of Y Naw Helwriaeth', Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies, 31 (1984), 119-132. These are the nine huntings which every man should know who can sound a horn; and whatsoever hunter carries a horn. And if he is asked concerning these nine huntings, unless he can reply