A few nights ago, stretched in a tent on the blue-gray gravel of the Lowe River floodplain, I woke to a series of sharp jolts. It felt like the earth was a giant halibut, and I was the fishing pole. Earthquake! The ratcheting westward lasted only a few seconds, but I felt the helplessness […]
Sluggish mosquitoes, sprung from the leaves where they overwintered. Moths and butterflies flitting the fields and south-facing slopes. Beetles skittering along in pinstripe-grooved exoskeletons. How many insects are stirring on the surface of Alaska? That’s a fun but hard-to-answer question that Derek Sikes recently pondered in response to writer and wilderness guide Michael Engelhard. I […]
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Scientists are searching through a massive collection of 20-million-year-old amber found in the Dominican Republic more than 50 years ago, and the effort is yielding fresh insights into ancient tropical insects and the world they inhabited. When the collection is fully curated, a task that will take many years, it will be […]