China has its pandas, India its tigers, and the River Ouse its tansy beetles. The size of an abacus bead, its shining green body imprinted with a rainbow, the tansy beetle is just as endangered as those better known species. Once widespread across the UK, they’re now limited to a 30-mile stretch of Yorkshire’s River Ouse.
One of the most accessible places to experience these treasures is the former abbey of St Mary’s in York Museum Gardens. Here the Tansy Beetle Champions Project has planted plots of the beetle’s exclusive food source – the tansy plant.
29 June 2016, The Tablet
Glimpses of Eden
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