Inside Nature’s Giants – Writtle College Edition

The American Alligator

Writtle College veterinarian Jarmila Bone, animal scientist Nieky van Veggel and third year animal science student Ed Church join forces in a bid to get under the skin of the alligator.

The team will uncover the alligator’s incredible jaw muscles and dental features. But while alligators’ spiked teeth are excellent for gripping prey as they plunge into a death roll, they are useless for chewing. So how do these animals manage to digest large chunks of raw meat and bone? During the dissection, the team will reveal the digestive system and inspect the stomach contents for clues.

Furthermore, they will reveal the bizarre plumbing between the heart and the stomach that might provide the key to this puzzle.

Writtle College students and staff are invited to join the dissection team in the Northumberland Lecture Theatre on a journey through the unique anatomy of the alligator in Inspiration & Activity week on Thursday 21 November 2013 from 14:00 – 16:00. Contact nieky.vanveggel@writtle.ac.uk

Image source: Wikipedia

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Writtle College Animal Science and Management degrees

Writtle Wildlife Watch (October 2013)

‘Delicious autumn!’ said George Eliot and with the leaves now turning to golds and reds after a blazing summer, we probably all agree with her.

But winter brings its own rewards and we are all now on the lookout for the arrival of winter thrushes on our College estate. For the past seven years the Writtle Conservation staff and students have been doing their own little bit of ‘citizen science’ by monitoring the first occurrence of various seasonal indicators, such as the first Red-tailed Bumblebee and first House Martin of spring.

So, looking back, did spring arrive early or late this year? Well, quite late actually! This graph shows when the House Martins have arrived at Writtle College over the last few years. The number of the left hand axis is the so-called Julian Day i.e. the higher the number, the later the birds arrived. So we can see that for the past two years, our House Martins have delayed their arrival, perhaps due to colder conditions hanging on longer into the year.

In autumn however, we look to the north for the first Redwings and Fieldfares. These birds will be arriving any day now and if you see any on the Writtle College estate, please join in our citizen science experiment and tell us which one of the two species it was, how many you saw, when and where. 

Image source: Wikipedia

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Writtle College Conservation degrees

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