LITTLE JOHN

THIS column specialises in daft animal stories, from Tasered sheep blocking the road in North Wales to the hedgehogs near London’s Euston station hibernating along the route of the HS2 railway line.

Creepy Crawlie Corner has also featured some belters over the years, including the Depressed River Mussel, responsible for widespread flooding in the Thames Valley, and the Little Whirlpool Ramshorn Snail, standing in the way of the A47 upgrade in Norfolk. Then there was the special suspension bridge to allow dormice to cross a new bypass in South Wales, which fell down during the first gust of high wind. As a nation we spend a small fortune on preserving the natural environment of threatened species. The latest to benefit is a colony of narrow-headed ants, who in England can only be found on the verge on the A38 trunk road near Chudleigh Knighton, in Devon.

Highways England is now working with the charity Buglife to protect their home alongside this busy dual carriageway, as part of a nationwide £30 million bio-diversity scheme. I have visions of them erecting ant-sized crash barriers and handing out miniature hi-viz jackets to the 1,000-or-so surviving worker ants and their queens. The only other surviving colony of narrow-headed ants is believed to be living by a road in the Highlands.

Elsewhere, in Aberdeenshire, a new outbreak of mad cow disease has been discovered. It is not known whether this is the same cow that earlier ran amok in a Mazda car showroom in Stirling, causing £1,500 of damage. I’ve heard of a bull in a china shop . . .

But it might have been worse. If the cow had managed to get behind the wheel of a car and had headed for the Highlands, it could have been curtains for the last colony of narrow-headed ants north of the Border.