WHAT wildlife would Don Quixote de la Mancha and Sancho Panza have encountered on their famous foray all those years ago, asks Richard Collins

The introduced animals were bred from wild ones captured in Scotland. A further 350 voles will be released later this year. To enhance genetic diversity, they will come from a different source population.

IN JUNE 1767, a quarter of a millennium ago this month, the bloody career of a mysterious killer came to an end, writes Richard Collins. 

Domenikos Theotokopoulos, from Crete, was known as ‘El Greco’ in Toledo. Now another Greek shares the famous nickname: ‘El Graeco’ is short for Graecopithecus freybergi. The dental records of this ape-like pre-human, who lived in the Eastern Mediterranean area, have put the cat among the anthropological pigeons. 

THE kraken of Norse legends and Scylla and Charybdis of ancient Greece were not just mythical beasts, writes Richard Collins. 

When the Little Red Hen found a grain of wheat in the farmyard, she asked the pig, the dog and the goat to help her plant it. They refused. 

The wars of the rodents, like the Wars of the Roses, have been long drawn-out affairs. Nor do they show much sign of ending any time soon; a jihad against a newly arrived furry pest is underway in Cork, writes Richard Collins. 

North Ronaldsay is the northernmost island of the Orkney archipelago. 

The recent discovery that humpback whale mothers and their new-born babies whisper to each other raises intriguing questions. We usually divide vocal communications into songs and calls, writes Richard Collins.

It is easier to accept a convincing new idea than to banish an old false one.