This young Virginia opossum was skulking around the bushes near a house at night, as opossums often do. Despite sometimes being mistaken for large rats, they aren’t closely related to…
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Cecropia Moths
Twenty-five years ago, a student brought me a dead, tattered specimen of a moth. Its prodigious wingspan, colorfully banded fuzzy body, and spectacular wings were unmistakable: cecropia moths…
April: Week one
This Week in the Woods, spring has finally arrived. Volunteers are on standby, monitoring temperatures and nighttime rain forecasts, to predict when spotted salamanders, wood frogs and other…
Spotting Lady Beetles for Science
During our first autumn in Westford, Vermont, a wave of ladybugs attempted to make our home theirs for the winter. My wife expressed concern that our toddler might eat one. I replied,…
Behind the Pages
Approximately 50 people contribute to the words and images in each issue of the magazine. Here are some of our Spring 2023 contributors. {image2} Conrad Baker (“Autism Nature…
Water Boatmen: Foraging Beneath the Ice
If you get a chance this winter, take a peek through the icy window of a pond surface. You may see water boatmen (order Hemiptera: Family Corixidae) clinging to the pond floor. Long oar-like…
Green Long-jawed Spiders
Winter rambles often take me to East Woods in South Burlington, Vermont. While birders gaze skyward, I find myself drawn to movement on the ground. Snow cover reduces invertebrate numbers, and…
From the Center
Roger Damon served more than 48 years on the Mount Washington Volunteer Ski Patrol, but he didn’t know that we would be publishing a photo essay in this issue focused on the Mount…
The Gall(s) of Hackberry
A student plopped a leaf on my desk, pointed to several green lumps on its underside, and asked, “What are those green growths?” It was a stump-the-professor moment, and in this…
Isopods: Crustaceans in the Forest
If you look beneath the damp undersides of cardboard and other packing materials, you’re likely to find tiny creatures that typically hide under fallen leaves and rotting wood, where…
Invasion of the Spotted Lanternfly
In September 2021, one boy’s blue ribbon-winning 4H project at the Kansas State Fair made national news. The exhibit included a colorfully-spotted, inch-long, moth-like insect that…
Hitchhiking Beetles
While I was photographing pollinators on a patch of meadow near a bike path, a bumblebee caught my attention. It appeared to have an enormous, clubbed antenna, as well as a normal-size one.…
Cobblestone Tiger Beetles Face Habitat Challenges
Earlier this summer, I joined graduate school friend and beetle biologist, Kristian Omland, in search of the elusive cobblestone tiger beetle (Cicindela marginipennis). We loaded a canoe with…
Phantom Midges: Late Night Feeders
Phantom midges are among the most common, but least seen, planktonic insect larvae in lakes and ponds. These members of the genus Chaoborus earn the “phantom” moniker from both…
Nets, Boots, Action: Sampling Macroinvertebrates
I have a pre-pandemic memory of a dozen high school students – armed with dipnets and wearing chest waders – emerging from a Saint Michael’s College van. Before masks and…
Jewels of the Beetle World
While I was searching the drawers of the Saint Michael’s College insect collection, a spectacular little beetle caught my eye. The pearlescent elytra, or wing coverings, were marked with…
The Under-Ice Food Web
Earlier this winter, I took to the pond ice – not to skate, but to peek below the surface. Although lake ecologists once considered the plankton in frozen lakes to be dormant during…
Western Conifer Seed Bugs Come Inside
I was settling in to answer a few emails when I heard, “Dad, some huge bug just flew into the lamp shade!” As the designated bug catch-and-releaser, I pressed into action. A…
The Winter Caddisfly
On a late winter afternoon in 1994, I accompanied Professor Jan Sykora, my thesis advisor, on a field trip to the Carnegie Museum’s Powdermill Nature Reserve in Pennsylvania’s…
Daddy Long Legs
All Fun and Games Until Someone Loses a Leg – or Three
There’s a fantastic song by folk singer Colm Gallagher called “Reel in the Flickering Light” about a daddy long legs who, after first making inquiries about the…