My arrival in Johannesburg has brought a welcome respite from the unbearable winter of New England, and tomorrow I fly to Gorongosa National Park to begin preparations for the official opening of the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Laboratory on March 27th. Stay tuned for updates and photos! But there is something else that I am very…
Category: Macrophotography
Mozambique Diary: A welcoming conehead
Last night I arrived in Mozambique’s capital Maputo. It was almost midnight when I finally got to my hotel, tired to the point of barely being able to keep my eyes open after more than 20 hours on the plane. But the scent of tropical, humid air was too much for me to resist, and…
Music in my head
I have always wanted to be a musician. Not that I have any particular musical talents (and never learned to read music), but my fascination with sound was definitely one of the reasons for becoming an expert in the taxonomy of orthopteroid insects, nature’s preeminent musicians. Few things are more pleasant to me than sitting…
BugShot 2013 in Belize
There are still a few slots available for BugShot 2013, a great opportunity to learn macrophotography in the rainforest of Belize from Alex Wild, Thomas Shahan, John Abbott, and yours truly. It is going to be a great event, at a fantastic location. You will not only discover the carefully guarded secrets of some of…
The Greatest Show on Earth, happening now
I am still in Mozambique, and will be here for a few more weeks, but I simply must take a quick break from describing African nature to highlight a spectacular phenomenon that is taking place right now along the eastern coast of North America – the mass spawning of the Atlantic horseshoe crabs (Limulus polyphemus)….
Mozambique Diary: Golden bats
Tomorrow marks the first official day of the Gorongosa Biodiversity Survey on the Cheringoma Plateau. All participating scientists are arriving, and the following morning we will depart for the first, northernmost site. But even before we get to those remote and unexplored areas, some of us have been already collecting interesting data. Earlier today a…
The Smaller Majority 