These days, if God speaks directly to you, be it about the precise date for the end of the world or his opinion about somebody else’s sexual preferences, you are either a crazy nut or a Westboro Baptist crazier nut. Ancient Greeks, clearly more open minded about such things, referred to a woman with powers…
Category: Insects
Who was Per Brinck?
Taxonomists, myself included, are often asked how we choose names for the organisms we discover and describe. Some are surprised to learn that species are often named after people, but that is also inappropriate to name species after yourself (albeit I know of one such case*). Naming species and genera after people is in fact…
The amazing Glass katydid
Once again things have been slow on my blog as I am trying to finish a million little things before my upcoming departure for Mozambique. I will be arriving there at the beginning of the rainy season, which means tons of insects and other invertebrates, a multitude of frogs, and hopefully some great new stories…
Bog killers
The one thing about plants that we take for granted is that they cannot really hurt you. Sure, some are full of toxic compounds and can be deadly poisonous if ingested. Others are covered with nasty spines or irritating hairs, and a tree can fall on your head during windy weather and crack your skull….
The chorus grows
On this sunny Columbus Day I stayed at home, which allowed me to discover another beautiful musician in my garden’s chorus, the Handsome Trig (Phyllopalpus pulchellus) (also known as the Red-headed Bush Cricket). I already wrote about this species, but I never suspected that I would find one of my favorite North American orthopterans in…
The Smaller Majority 