A friend of mine once asked “why don’t people watch insects the same way they watch birds?” It’s a fair question. After all, many insects – such as butterflies and a good many beetles – are distinctively patterned or colored in such a way that an amateur could learn to identify them on sight – […]
When I first saw the flyer advertising Richard Vetter’s forthcoming book The Brown Recluse Spider on the Cornell University Press table at the 2014 Entomology Society of America convention I thought “Well it’s about time!” After all, I can think of no spider in North America about which there is more misunderstanding and misidentification than the Brown Recluse.
Of all the creatures that fly, swim, or crawl across the face of the planet, perhaps none more commonly inspire feelings of unease, queasiness, and outright fear than spiders.
This morning as I raised the blinds covering our living room windows, I noticed that a spider had built a web that spanned the entirety of the central pane. “Wow, I’ll need to clear that off before this evening so none of the moths that frequent that window will get caught.” As soon as that […]