One of the most endearing characteristics of grasshoppers is their ability to produce sound. Some of the most wonderful memories of my childhood include sitting in a meadow bursting with sounds of insects and watching grasshoppers use their hind legs to produce soft, rhythmical songs, and not realizing that a seed that would eventually blossom…
Category: Insects
Mozambique Diary: Playing a detective
For an entomologist few pleasures in life are greater than arriving in a new geographic area and being stumped by unfamiliar and mysterious insects, often ones that he/she had never suspected existed. I had a moment like this last night, when I ran across a strange, metallic blue insect, about 25 mm long, walking on…
Mozambique Diary: The real birds-of-paradise
Early Portuguese and Spanish explorers who visited the island of New Guinea in the 16th century were astounded by magnificent, brilliantly colored birds, whose plumage was used by the locals to adorn their headgear and bodies. European naturalists who examined skins of these birds brought back from New Guinea noticed that all specimens lacked legs,…
Mozambique Diary: A reversal of fortune
Gorongosa National Park is heaven for praying mantids – nowhere else in the world have I seen so many different species or similarly high abundance of these insects. This appears to be a good indicator of the overall condition of this ecosystem, with almost unlimited availability of prey. Usually this means grasshoppers and other insects,…
Mozambique Diary: It is loud out here
I am back from the first reconnaissance trip to the Cheringoma Plateau in the eastern part of Gorongosa. It was slow going and in nearly all places we were forced to do a lot of road clearing, removing or finding a way around fallen trees, but the rewards were great. The eastern part of the…
Mozambique Diary: Back in Gorongosa
Yesterday I arrived in the spectacular Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique. Last time when I was here the place was dry and dusty, but now, at the end of the rainy season the luxuriant vegetation is vibrantly green and after the misery of Boston’s winter the air feels throat-soothingly humid. During the day Gorongosa’s woodlands…
The Smaller Majority 