A cautionary tale (humour)

[Jack Harrison]

Lepidopterist, Martha Black, was not always popular with butterfly enthusiasts. But it was grudgingly admitted that she had skills that few others could match. There were mixed reactions when she bred large numbers of Lesser Purple Emperors Apatura ilia, and released them in woods in southern England where they flourished and spread northward at the astonishing rate of around 50 kilometres per year.

Ms Black, a lifelong spinster, became more ambitious after a visit to Argentina and Chile where she was impressed by Auca coctei
an analogue of our own Meadow Brown:

https://inaturalist-open-data.s3.amazon ... iginal.jpg

Black unwisely smuggled some larvae through immigration at Heathrow where Donald Muller, a butterfly enthusiast himself, was on duty.  Muller was obliged at the subsequent Inquiry to admit that he should have recognised Martha Black and searched her luggage more thoroughly.

The Chilean Meadow Brown, as it had now been called, proved to be very easy to breed and eventually Black had enough adults to release in the Vale of York near her home.

In its native Chile and Argentina, the butterfly breeds on a species of Tussock Grass, not exactly widespread in the Vale of York. However, the Chilean Meadow Brown quickly found cultivated barley very much to its liking and was soon swarming in prodigious numbers, the larvae being known as Chilean Worms.

Now, the Jade Lobby had recently secured a total ban on the use of insecticides in Britain. The Jades claimed this was a vindication for Brexxout: meanwhile EU countries had no such bans and although a few Chilean Meadow Browns did make it across to the Calais area of France, they were quickly controlled.

With the Chilean Worm crawling amok in the UK, barley crops failed over much of the country. The previously-lucrative Whisky export trade collapsed. For many beer-swilling Brits, that was of no concern. But when pubs could no longer offer Real Ale, drinkers rebelled at having only imported beer such as Budwasher available.

Martha Black died in 2019, but her memory is still felt. A pub near Tadcaster offers Martha Black IPA with a sign saying "out of stock - indefinitely".

[Padfield]

Here's to the memory of the late, lamented Martin White. RIP.

Guy

[petesmith]

Here's to the memory of the late, lamented Martin White. RIP.

Guy

Seconded.

[David M]

Indeed!

A spectacular one-off guy.