The Smaller Majority

Mozambique Diary: The Abominable Frogman

If frogs tell their children scary stories, one of them certainly must be about the Abominable Frogman, a strange, giant creature that comes in the middle of the night to snatch unsuspecting frogs and take them away. And, like so many scary stories, this one would have a kernel of truth in it, for the…

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: On the benefits of being lazy

Since I needed for one of my book projects a few shots of the famous Gorongosa crocodiles, which rank among the largest in Africa, I asked for help from Bob Poole, a man with considerable crocodile experience. Bob is a legendary National Geographic cameraman who shot, among other NatGeo titles, “Africa’s Lost Eden” and “War…

Mozambique Diary: The Lizard Quest

Sitting on the dusty floor of a makeshift laboratory tent Harith Farooq carefully folded a piece of fine, steel mesh into a foot-long cylinder, then weaved in a stretch of a thick wire along its edge. Finally, he carefully attached a neck of an empty water bottle to one of the ends and looked at…

Mozambique Diary: Alipes

A couple of weeks ago I was ripping slabs of bark off an old fallen log, an activity that to me ranks among the most pleasurable things one can do, right up there with unwrapping Christmas presents. There is always a chance of finding something incredible – a beautiful cerambycid beetle, a colony of Pyramica,…

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)….