Arriving in Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique at this time of the year, when the grasslands are bone dry and green has all but disappeared from the color palette of this immense ecosystem, I did not expect to see too many insects. Sure, there will always be ants and a bunch of grasshoppers, but the…
Category: Behavior
A song of ancient Earth
Those who have been reading this blog with some regularity may have noticed that I find virtually all organisms equally fascinating. But some are more equal than others, and few animals and plants excite me more than phylogenetic relics. These are the last remaining members of lineages that were once dominant, or at least species-rich,…
They can count, too
In March of 1882 a little known journal that had been founded only two years prior was about to go under – nobody wanted to read it, and its owner was tired of putting any more money into it. But an enthusiastic entomologist named Samuel H. Scudder, who at that time, after many years of…
Scorpionflies
The Estabrook Woods near the town of Concord, MA have over the years become my favorite local place to find interesting insects and ancient plants. It is also a great location to let my dogs exercise their primeval desire to chase little furry things (always unsuccessfully) and wade in stagnant, swampy water. Recently I wrote…
Hanging in there
Things have been keeping me away from updating the blog, but I finally found a moment to write about one cool animal that usually shows up at this time of year in Massachusetts – the scorpionfly (Panorpa). Or at least that was the original plan. Since I had, literally, only one, rather lousy shot of this…
Helmeted katydids
Porgera, a gold mine in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, is not a pleasant place for a biologist, especially if you are aware of the massive environmental damage of its operations, or the frequent human right violations that this mining camp is known for. But we had no choice but to sleep with the…
The Smaller Majority 