If you ever find yourself in South Africa during southern spring, and stay up long into the night, until midnight at least, you may be rewarded with one of the most incredible acoustic displays that the insect world has to offer. For this is the time when the bladder grasshoppers, known in Africa as the…
Category: Macrophotography
My rainforest portrait studio
Katydids of the tribe Pterochrozini are some of the best leaf mimics that you can find in the Neotropical rainforest. Or rather the best mimics that you cannot find, as their resemblance to leaves, both green and shriveled, is so exquisite that in my 18 years of working in the Neotropics I have never found…
Stay away from my cucumbers
My wife has been trying to grow cucumbers for years. Her thumbs are as green as the fuzzy layer of mold on my tent after a month in the Ghanaian rainforest, and yet the fickle plant had refused to produce any reproductive structures for years. Until now. Yesterday she harvested her first, beautiful cucumber from…
Sharp spines, strange sex
I know many arachnophobes; in fact I live with one. But being afraid of spiders of the genus Micrathena is about as rational as being afraid of a diamond brooch. These animals are jewelry come alive, harmless, and each more ornate and vividly colored than the other. There are about 100 known species of Micrathena (Araneidae),…
How to swim on dry land
Namibia is one of the driest places on the planet. It is home to the Namib Desert, the oldest perpetually dry place on Earth, which has endured arid conditions for at least the last 55 million years. Most places in the Namib receive less than 10 mm of rain per year, some even less, and…
Devil’s got a pretty face
Many things have bitten, pinched, stung, or jabbed me over the years, but the absolute champions in delivering the most memorable, painful experience are pretty little insects known as the slug caterpillars. They are larvae of equally handsome moths, members of the family Limacodidae. The body of most limacodid caterpillars is covered with long, brittle…
The Smaller Majority 