The Smaller Majority

Mozambique Diary: A talking grasshopper

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…

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: It’s good to have my gear back

To celebrate the miraculous recovery of my photographic equipment from the clutches of South African Airways, today I took my new Canon 400mm for a short spin around the Chitengo camp. I usually do not photograph birds and mammals, but there are so many of them around that it would be a shame not to…

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: The Marbled half-piglet

Walking around the Chitengo Camp in Gorongosa, especially after the rain when the earth is soft, I often run into two types of cute, pig-like creatures. Warthogs are the more noticeable ones, digging around for roots and grubs, completely unafraid of the busy activity of the preparations for the opening of the tourist season. But…