You may not have heard of me but I am a Gribble. You could call me a small white crustacean that lives in the sea. I'm 4 millimetres long which is quite big from our point of view. I eat wood and seaweed. Wooden ships taste good, as do wooden jetties and piers. What we're really good at though, is clearing up driftwood and that's our natural role in life. It's good to think you have a purpose isn't it? We generally enjoy our lives, but we get scared too sometimes, like other creatures, and then we jam ourselves into our wood burrows and refuse to come out.
Now a rumour is going round Gribble society that you over-large humans are on our scent. Not because we nosh your piers and boats, but because we seem to have something you want. You think that the things our bodies break down the wood with (you call them enzymes apparently) could be used to produce sugar from wood or straw, and then this could be turned into something you really want badly, called biofuel.
What we Gribbles want to know is - why can't you big bullies leave us little creatures alone? We've been happy in the seas for millions of years. We don't want you taking our enzymes. What if you hurt us? Would you even care? As a Gribble I would like to complain about this treatment. I ask all Gribbles and Gribble supporters to support my new online petition, 'No graves for Gribbles.' And when I've signed it myself I'm going to barricade myself into my burrow.
Signed, G Gribble.
Scientists hope to make liquid biofuels based on digestive enzymes found in the gribble following research at the BBSRC Sustainable Bioenergy Centre.
First News 12th March 2010
Sunday 14 March 2010
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