Of syrup and large carnivores

Asiatic Lions, Gir Forest, India

Sitting on many pantry shelves in Britain is a tin of Tate & Lyles Golden Syrup, much employed in the creation of puddings, poured on porridge, and many other uses. Only when you examine the label will you find a rather strange picture – a dead lion surrounded by buzzing insects, and the motto “Out of the strong came forth sweetness”. Using a dead and decaying predator for liquid sugar seems a rather odd advertising gimmick, especially one that has not been changed since 1883, so what is going on? This post is dedicated to the curious history of lions outside Africa, and how they wound up on a tin.

To start with, where do lions come from? Genetic analysis suggests the lineage of all modern big cats split from other felids around 10 or so million years ago, with ancestral lions appearing around 2 million years ago in Africa, at about the same time our own lineage started to look more like present day people rather than bipedal chimpanzees. These ancestral lions dispersed out of Africa across Asia, eventually even reaching the Americas where the American form, Panthera atrox, is frequently found at the famous Rancho La Brea site (which by the way is in the middle of Los Angeles surrounded by traffic). However, as part of the mass extinction at the end of the last glaciation these Northern and American lions died out, leaving only the living species. These were not just confined to Africa though – they lived in open country across Arabia, into the Middle East as far as central India at least. How far east they ranged is not clear as they became part of human stories and mythology practically from the start, but the famous Lion Dances in China and various references in many South Asian cultures suggests they were certainly not unknown.

Mosaic depicting Heracles and the Nemean Lion

By the earliest historical period though lions outside Africa lived in the Middle East, Iran, Anatolia and northern India, and were much persecuted. They also just survived in Europe in the Balkans and possibly further east into Central Asia – lions figure in decorative Scythian art from the earliest historical period, and they were definitely present in the steppes and grasslands of Europe as far west as Hungary well into the Bronze Age. In Greek mythology the first of the twelve labours of Herakles ,in penance for the murder of his wife, was to kill the invincible Nemean lion (he trapped it in a cave and strangled it with his bare hands). Other lions appear in other Greek myths, and it was alleged that lions attacked the camels supplying the troops of the Persian invasion in 480BCE.

In the Middle East however lions survived in greater numbers, and that is how they came to wind up on a syrup tin. The quotation is from the Bible, as part of the story of Samson in the Book of Judges. Incidentally, I cannot help feeling that “Judges” is a really bad translation of the original Hebrew, as it conjurs up pictures of a courtroom and someone passing sentence – “Champions” or even “Superheroes” would seem to give a better approximation of the contents of the book to me. Judges details the semi-legendary figures from the period between Moses and the establishment of the Israelite Monarchy under David. The story starts with Samson going down to Timnah – Philistine Territory – because he had fallen for a girl he had fallen for:

-        When he came to the vineyards of Timnah, suddenly a young lion roared at him. The spirit of the Lord rushed on him, and he tore the lion apart barehanded as one might tear apart a kid. But he did not tell his father or mother what he had done. Then he went down and talked with the woman, and she pleased Samson. After a while he returned to marry her, and he turned aside to see the carcase of the lion, and there was a swarm of bees in the body of the kion, and honey. He scraped it out into his hands, and went on, easting as he went.”

Samson and the Lion

The wedding feast does not go well. Samson makes a bet with the young men of his wife’s relatives:

-        Samson said to them” Let me now put a riddle to you. If you can explain it to me within the seven days of the feast, and find it out, I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty festal garments. But if you cannot explain it to me, then you must give me thirty linen garments and thirty festal garments. So they said to him “Ask your riddle, let us hear it.” He said to them “Out of the eater came something to east, out of the strong came something sweet”.

Unable to guess the riddle, they finally persuade Samsons new wife to wheedle the secret out of him, and that is when things go really wrong:

-        The men of the town said to him on the seventh day before the sun went down “What is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion?” And he said to them “If you had not ploughed with my heifer, you would not have found out my riddle”. Then the spirit of the Lord rushed on him, and he went down to Ashkelon. He killed thirty men of the town, took their spoil, and gave the festal garments to those who had explained the riddle. In hot anger he went back to his fathers’ house. And Samsons wife was given to his companion, who had been his best man.

A pretty horrible story, as I am sure you agree, but it does show that in this early period at least lions were familiar enough to figure in popular stories.

Later, the boy David volunteers to Saul to fight Goliath, explaining why he is not afraid:

-        “Your servant used to keep sheep for his father; and whenever a lion or a bear came, and took a lamb from the flock, I went down after it and struck it down, rescuing the lamb from its mouth, and if it turned against me I would catch it by the jaw, strike it down and kill it. Your servant has killed both lions and bears, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, since he has defied the armies of the living God” (I should point out that at this point the said armies are holed up in the hills, scared to come to open battle against a vastly better equipped Philistine army.)

To go back to the beginning of this post, in 1881 an enterprising sugar refiner named Abram Lyle found he could sell the syrup produced as part of his cane sugar refining process to grocers all over London, and invented the label that the tins carry to this day. The business later merged with another sugar refiner, Henry Tate & Sons (The Tate Gallery in London was founded with a donation from the family). In 2010 the whole business was sold to American Sugar Refining, Inc, leaving the famous tins as simply a brand label.

Part 8: Losses and recoveries

 

Skylark

Around 40,000 years ago the last glaciation culminated in the Last Glacial Maximum. Modern humans by this time had already reached Australia, and this time saw the end of the Neanderthals, Denisovans and other pre-modern humans who had lived all across the world. They did not disappear entirely however – before they vanished as separate peoples they produced children with modern type humans and their DNA lives on in all of us to this day.

Grey Partridges

How much modern humans were the direct cause of the total extinction or range restriction of the animals I have talked about is not always clear, but a combination of rapid climate change and the selective targeting or large animals by modern humans (who unlike Neanderthals had developed distance weapons such as arrows and other sophisticated technology) must be a main contender. The extinction of elephants and rhinos especially would have resulted in massive expansion of close-canopy forest as the climate warmed compared to earlier periods, a disaster for animals and birds adapted to warmer grasslands. Ironically, it was the invention of agriculture that might have helped them, as fields would have sufficiently emulated the old elephant-created open grassland to provide habitat for what we now think of as “farmland” birds such as Skylarks, finches, buntings, partridges or even Great Bustards.

Great Bustard

In the past few decades an increasing number of different species rendered extinct in this country being reintroduced or having their numbers greatly supplemented by additional released animals. For example, Red Kites were restricted entirely to Wales and were on the verge of extinction until a carefully planned and monitored release programme extended them across the UK and they are commonly seen along many of our motorways as they scan for roadkill. More recently an equally successful reintroduction of White-Tailed Eagles has restored them to Scotland, and a release programme has started on the south coast of England where the first released juveniles are approaching breeding age.

White Tailed Eagle

More problematic is the reintroduction of mammals.  Beaver reintroductions were controversial for a long time – not without reason from the point of view of a farmer whose fields of maize border a river – but they are now in several areas as either fully wild animals or at least as self-supporting animals in fenced areas. The next big areas will be carnivores, of which Wild Cat and Lynx are possibilities. True Eurasian Wild Cats are almost extinct in Scotland as a result of persecution and hybridisation with domestic cats, but their natural range was throughout the UK. There are discussions of possible reintroductions either in Wales or the South West. Lynx are key predators of Roes Deer, which will certainly get them points with arable farmers and foresters, but they are unfortunately also quite capable of killing sheep and as a result sheep farmers are putting up a lot of opposition. Larger predators such as Wolves are talked about, but outside of a fenced enclosure I cannot see wild Wolves being let loos in the UK sadly, although in western Europe Wolves are actually doing very well at the moment – in fact they have already reached the North Sea coast and if they were only slightly better long distance swimmers they would be showing up in southeast England in the next few years.

Eurasian Beaver

The crowded and heavily farmed areas of Britain make rewilding over truly large areas in this country very difficult, but on a smaller scale quite a lot can be done. Conservation grazing is standard practise on reserves to preserve habitat, but usually this involved domestic livestock of various “primitive” breeds such as Exmoor Ponies, Highland Cattle, or indeed, as in the Avon Gorge, Domestic Goat. In 2022 the Wilder Blean Project in Kent plans to use European Bison (inside a large, fenced enclosure) for the same purpose. However, the largest rewilding type project in the UK is currently the Knepp Estate, which has pioneered many new ecological practises by using a mixture of domestic livestock (Longhorn cattle, Exmoor Ponies, Tamworth Pigs) plus deer (Red, Roe, Fallow) to affect the habitats. As a result, Knepp is now home to the largest colony of Purple Emperor butterflies in the UK, and is also a successful site for the Turtle Dove. Knepp is also home to a reintroduction project for White Stork, which became extinct in the UK in the Middle Ages and has now bred successfully (14 chicks fledged in 2021). Knepp is now a role model for what rewilding might look like in a crowded island like Britain in which there is little room for majopr landscape-scale projects in much of the country.

White Stork in Sussex

This brings an end to this series of discussions, I hope readers have enjoyed them, over the next few months I will be looking at the histories of reintroductions in the UK and the lessons that can be learned from how they turned out.

Part 7: Butterflies and other insects

 

British Swallowtail

With the exception of beetles, whose tough exoskeletons are often preserved, insects do not often fossilise so the insect fauna of Britain is mostly speculative. In most ways it probably resembled the modern fauna, although the slightly warmer summers and more seasonal climate might have meant that it had more in common with central and western France than it has today. One way we can determine the structure of the habitat is from those beetles, as they are quite specific in their habitat requirements. The high incidence of certain types of dung beetles indicates that the British landscape in many areas was open countryside with large numbers of large herbivores shaping the habitat – the picture of primeval Europe being one vast forest is itself unnatural and is probably a consequence of the extinction of megafauna across the planet at the end of the last glaciation.

Many insects are migratory, and no doubt Painted Lady, Red Admiral and other butterflies made annual visits to Britain for the summer before migrating back south in the autumn, just as they do today. Dragonflies are also long-distance migrants in many cases, so the beaver and hippo- created wetlands would have swarmed with them as well. Without pollution, mayflies would likewise have swarmed over the water providing ample food for insectivorous birds.

Britain has very few endemic insects but they include our largest and most specialised butterfly, the British subspecies of the widespread Common Swallowtail Papilio machaon. There are several species across Europe, and the mainland subspecies sometimes migrates into Britain and even sometimes breeds (Swallowtails are strong flyers and the mainland form feeds on many plants in the carrot family). The British form however is highly specialised for feeding on a single foodplant – Milk Parsley- and this only grows in marshy areas. This specialisation cannot be a recent development since the end of the last glaciation so presumably the original habitat was the extensive marshland where the North Sea now covers the land, and in the Eemian it might well have been widespread across the wetlands of southern Britain. Milk Parsley needs to grow to a large size before it becomes attractive to egg-laying females, and a specific reed-cutting and grazing regime is needed to maintain the habitat it optimum condition in the few sites it still survives. In the past grazing by large animals, occasional fires, and more extensive wetlands would have made its survival much less of a problem,

Large Copper

Using the same habitat would have been the Large Copper, whose native British subspecies is now sadly extinct. Attempts have been made to reintroduce the continental form, but with limited success.

Scarce Swallowtail

Another swallowtail butterfly found in Europe is the Scarce Swallowtail, which got its name from rare specimens obtained by early collectors in southwest England. These may have been a tiny surviving population or recent immigrants, but in the Eemian they might well have been widespread as the larvae feed on many common and widespread species of Prunus, Malus and Crataegus among other plants. With a similar range of foodplants the Black-Veined White, formerly native to the UK but now only found on the continent, would have also been found on the edges of woodlands and in scrub.

Purple and Lesser Purple Emperors feeding

After the Swallowtail, Britain’s largest extant butterfly is the Purple Emperor, but they might well have been joined by its only slightly smaller relative the Lesser Emperor. This continental species favours damp woodlands where poplars (its main foodplant) grow. Both these species are well known for being attracted to animal dung, so the territorial middens of rhinos and piles of elephant dung would have been a magnet for them.

Camberwell Beauty

The more seasonal climate would have made Britain much more habitable for what is now a rare immigrant to this country, the large and impressive Camberwell Beauty (known as the Mourning Cloak in the US). The butterfly was named from where it was first caught by an early collector, but all those seen in the UK are the result of individual hitching a lift with imported wood from the continent.

The Glanville Fritillary has a toehold on the south coast today and might well have been more widespread in the south given the more continental climate.

Among moths, the habitat would have been ideal for those that love flowering meadows such as the various Burnet moths, and various hawkmoths like Broad-Bordered Bee Hawk would have been far more widespread than it is today.

This completes my survey of Eemian Britain. Next time I will look at the consequences of these discoveries for conservation and rewilding in Britain today.

Part 6: Eemian Reptiles and Amphibians in the UK

 

Dice Snake

The modern British herpetofauna is rather impoverished compared to mainland Europe, with many species certainly capable of living and breeding in Britain reaching the North Sea and Channel coasts but going no further. This is due to the separation of Britain from the continent – by the time southern European species had spread north far enough the sea was in the way. However, at least a few species made it to Britain early but then disappeared as the climate became cooler and wetter during the Holocene. As the Channel was formed prior to the Eemian Interglacial the same situation would have applied as the weather warmed up, and the herpetofauna of the British Isles would also have been limited compared to the European mainland.

Among the reptiles as well as the Grass Snake, Smooth Snake and Adder that are resident today there have been found fragmentary remains of at least one, possibly two other species. The Dice Snake Natrix tesselata is a small relative of the Grass Snake and like it feeds on fish and amphibians. The Viperine Snake Natrix maura has a very similar diet but seems to prefer slightly warmer conditions, making it perhaps less likely to be the small Natrix species known from a few Eemian sites. Grass snakes are very fond of using compost heaps and manure piles on farms for egg laying, so they might have made similar use of the territorial middens of the various rhinos,

Lizards like the Viviparous Lizard, Sand Lizard and Slowworm that are resident in Britain today are all known from the Eemian. Other species such as Western Green Lizard or Wall Lizard (both introduced to the UK today) may have been present but whether they got to Britain before the rising seas isolated Britain is not known.

European Pond Tortoise

One reptile that did make it to Britain is the European Pond Tortoise, which is known from several sites. Britain is very marginal for this species and it could only breed successfully when summers were long and warm enough for the eggs to incubate successfully. They also made it to Britain at the end of the last glaciation, but then died out early in the Holocene.

Among amphibians their remains are usually very fragmentary which makes identification difficult. However, the three newt species (Great Crested, Palmate and Smooth) that live in Britain today were certainly present, as were Grass (Common) Frog, Common Toad and Natterjack Toad – as the Natterjack specialises in disturbed habitats and temporary pools the wallows and other excavations by hippos, elephants and others would have made it fairly widespread compared to its status in Britain today. Also present were at least one member of the Pool Frog/ Marsh Frog complex. Pool Frogs were a resident in East Anglia in the Holocene but the last colonies sadly became extinct in the 20^th century, as they were believed to be introduced and were therefore not protected. Today there is an introduction programme for Pool Frogs, but the most widespread and successful introductions are Marsh Frogs, now present at many sites across the south of England.

Another frog species, the Moor Frog Rana arvalis, has a mainly eastern distribution today but has been found from Eemian sites. They were present in Britain in the early Holocene, but then died out.

Finally, fragmentary remains of Green Tree Frogs are also known from the Eemian, and in the south at least might have been widespread in waterside vegetation and scrub.

European Tree Frog

If Green Tree Frogs made it to Britain before the sea rose it is possible that several other European amphibians made it to Britain but have not yet been found as fossil remains. Midwife Toads, Yellow-Bellied Toads and Fire Salamanders are also possibilities and can survive and breed in a British climate today.

Even less likely to leave remains are most invertebrates, so the next section will have to be mainly speculative.