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The overlooked research paradise
The Australian outback, jungles, tundras, deserts, highlands, savannas and marshes. They’re the remote regions most field scientists love to explore and research, due to both the little we know about...
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An entomologist’s (and a photographer’s) bucket list
As a kid, I grew up reading about fantastic animals, creatures that were more incredible than anything my imagination could assemble: bats with leaf-like noses, hoatzins, axolotls, elephants, platypus,...
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Field trip etiquette
Field trips are an integral and vital part of an entomologist’s work. It’s where we collect specimens, make in situ observations regarding behavior and a vast array of other important data. Typically,...
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Interrupted by a lady(bug)
Today in class, my teacher, a classmate (a plant physiologist and an immunology grad student, respectively) and I were discussing our journal reviews for this trimester. We’re focused on presenting our...
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There’s no such thing as a dull beetle
When I ask people to name shiny, colorful insects, butterflies and the “regular” beetles (the common ones that people usually see, like ladybugs) are the ones that come up. There are many insects that...
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The perils of being busy
We’ve all heard ourselves say “I’ll get to [X] as soon as I finish what I’m doing”, and realizing a while later (sometimes days) that we never got around to [X]. Sometimes it means that you simply have...
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Odd little things
When we learn about different animals, we are usually told about the big picture, the general characteristics that will help us identify a particular group. As we study specific classes/orders/families...
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Peculiar hitchhikers
Phoresis has been well studied interaction in biology, and it has been reported in both vertebrates and invertebrates. An example of vertebrate phoresis is the remora (Perciformes: Echeneidae), whose...
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Pre-NMW 2013
We are currently in the middle of National Moth Week, and I am organizing a mothing event in a biological station (trying to, at least; I was supposed to leave yesterday but I had car trouble). I’ve...
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The impaler
There are always outsiders in entomology, groups that don’t follow the norm. We’re taught, for example, that stink bugs are herbivorous (and often pests), that some feed on nitrogen-rich reproductive...
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Wasp-mimicking katydids
Imagine yourself in a tropical jungle. You see a medium sized insect, about 3.5 cm long, land on a light trap. Its body is elongated, metallic black with a bluish hue, bright orange wings and long...
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Limping around
The thought of us humans losing a limb is catastrophic, but some insects can shrug it off, or at least to some extent. Stick insects (order Phasmatodea) are able to regenerate limbs without apparent...
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The thing in the pits
You leave your home in the morning, as you do every day. On your way to work, you walk past a deep, conical pit, dug in fine sand, with smooth edges that lead to a small cavity at the bottom. As you...
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A light trap in the city
I have always been interested in biodiversity. The incredible array of shapes, sizes, colors, habitats and adaptations of organisms is something I find fascinating. I have been fortunate enough to have...
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Campus sweep (a.k.a. an early Xmas)
If any of you readers follow me on Twitter, you’ll know that I have a slight bias towards collecting arthropods by sweeping with an insect net. It lets you collect an incredible diversity of arthropods...
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Limping around
The thought of us humans losing a limb is catastrophic, but some insects can shrug it off, or at least to some extent. Stick insects (order Phasmatodea) are able to regenerate limbs without apparent...
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Trying out the wide angle macro technique
It’s been a while since I’ve gone on a leisure insect photography walk. Today I had the opportunity to walk around a small ecological garden in the middle of the city, where one of the students showed...
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My bucket list got shorter
Venezuela is a beautiful country, with everything from deserts to rainforests, snowy mountains to seasonally flooded savannas. I’ve been fortunate to have traveled to many of the different environments...
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I have no clue what happened here
Last weekend I went with on a field trip to Guáquira Ecological Station in Yaracuy, Venezuela. During a walk to one of our field sites we passed a group of plants in the family Musaceae, and a small...
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Limping around
The thought of us humans losing a limb is catastrophic, but some insects can shrug it off, or at least to some extent. Stick insects (order Phasmatodea) are able to regenerate limbs without apparent...
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