A friend of mine once compared holding a dung beetle in your hand to kissing a dog on the snout – both feel kind of good, until you think of the last thing they have probably been rubbing against. At least with dogs there is some room for other options, but there is no such…
Category: Insects
Mozambique Diary: Manticora redux
Some weeks ago I wrote about the Monster Tiger Beetle (Manticora) that I had found in the savanna of Gorongosa. These insects are powerful predators, hunting grasshoppers and other small invertebrates using their enormous mandibles. The larvae of Manticora are similarly carnivorous, but rather than actively pursuing their prey the way their parents do, they…
Mozambique Diary: I have fallen and I can’t get up
The best part of traveling with a group of biologists in a place like the Cheringoma Plateau is the impossibility of ever being bored. Not only can you witness hilarious and exotic injuries (where else do people get bitten by bats?), but every day brings new discoveries of things you never thought existed. At our…
Mozambique Diary: Heroes, and what bugs them
One early morning, while on the Cheringoma Plateau, an invited mammalogist came running into the camp. “We caught something really good in our traps!”, the mammalogist announced breathlessly, sending the media team that was filming our expedition into a state of frenzied excitement. Everybody rushed to see the mystery animal, whose identity the person refused…
Mozambique Diary: Sylvan katydids of Gorongosa
A few nights ago, as I was walking towards my cabin along the edge of the Chitengo Camp, I heard a call of a cricket that I did not quite recognize. Cricket calls are unmistakable for their clean, almost melodious quality, very different from the call of a cicada or a katydid, which tend to…
Mozambique Diary: Manticora
Things have been busy here in Chitengo, and I am struggling to find time to update the blog amidst the preparations to our upcoming biodiversity survey of the Cheringoma Plateau. But I simply cannot resist mentioning one of the most remarkable creatures that I have had the pleasure to meet in Gorongosa. Every biologist has…
The Smaller Majority 