Ram raided Milton Post Office and crustaceans in my tank

A respite from translation and flyer design in the form of a walk to Milton Surgery took me past the Milton Post Office. It had been the target of a ram raid on the 14th of April that left the entire shop front staved in but the thieves unable to remove the cash machine. Today, the windows were boarded up but the post office was open. I stopped for a chat with the proprietor, Mr Lakhani, who is a respected part of the village community.

Mr Lakhani's post office and village store had been the subject of criminal attacks in 2005 and 2003 and one must admire his resilience. He was resigned to the event and sceptical as to the likelihood of the criminals being caught and adequately punished. As ever, even with insurance covering the damage, there are associated costs and delays as the rebuilding of the shop front will take several weeks. Reassuringly, there was still a stream of customers coming to the post office.

It is now about 10 days since I returned with sand and sea-water from an outing to Hunstanton North Beach. Today, when the sun shone brightly into the small fish tank, there was a sudden flicker of movement. Moving closer, I could see that there were three unexpected crustaceans scurrying close to the front of the tank and the previous Idotea was also active. The creatures were still small, at only several millimetres length, so difficult to identify, irrespective of their lively movement.

I attempted to record the creatures with my camcorder, with some success and you can see the results here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LirD40TDDrg. Enlarged, the creatures appeared to be Gammarus species.  The genus is renowned for a variety of species that can be used as indicators of salinity, each species prefering a particular habitat.

I could not find out much more about them on the internet but would like to add an observation of my own. The creatures were very active with incident sun in the tank. When I shaded the tank with a sheet of card, they immediately stopped and buried into the sand and did not emerge again. Removing the shading card and the creatures one again emerged to scurry around and feed.