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…

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,…

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…

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…

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.…

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…

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…

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…

While hiking with my son on Snake Mountain in Addison County, Vermont, I noticed a rather impressive millipede on the trail. When I think “millipede,” I usually think about small,…

Each spring, as melting snow liberates the forest floor, I seek out wildflowers. I flip through Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide, counting petals and leaves to tell hepaticas apart and to sort…