One of the year’s first insects to appear on my deck railing is the winter firefly, Photinus corrusca, which shows up on warm days throughout winter. A brown beetle with pink parentheses…

This week in the woods, we discovered (via a remote camera trap) a Virginia opossum trundling back and forth from a derelict shed. On each return trip, it was carrying leaves with its tail. And yes…

In May of this year, when a cottonwood measuring nearly 3 ½ feet in diameter and more than 100 feet tall fell across a trail in the Saint Michael’s College Natural Area, I saw the event…

Goldenrods in bloom are the Grand Central Station for insects. Some insects come in search of nectar, others for pollen, more for mates, and still others are predators for whom the diverse community…

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 rodents at…

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 stand…

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 early…

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, “Well…

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 Trail,” page…

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 hind legs…

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 those…

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 Washington…

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 case, I…

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…

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 immediately…

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. Closer…

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 insect…

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 their…

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 social…

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…