When it comes to the stuff of which nightmares are commonly made, it’s difficult to find a more commonly employed foundation material than the creatures contained in the Phylum Arthropoda, particularly those included in the Classes Insecta and Arachnida; in common parlance – insects and spiders. Different from us in so many ways – number of appendages and location of the skeleton respective to the vital organs being only two of the most obvious – arthropods present the average person with a near-perfect conundrum: living, autonomously mobile creatures whose perceptions, habits, and motivations are all but a complete mystery. From this lack of understanding has sprung fear and a willingness to accept even outlandish explanations to fill the void. For this reason, the popular understanding of the natural histories of those species living in closest proximity to us has long been heavily burdened by incorrect information. Fortunately, May R. Berenbaum’s The Earwig’s Tail: A Modern Bestiary of Multi-Legged Legends greatly lightens the load of entomological ignorance under which so many of us unknowingly labor. Read the rest of this entry »

Recounting the life of a notoriously private person is, not unexpectedly, a very difficult task. In the case of Roger Tory Peterson, the activity is made all the more difficult by the fact that one facet of his life, his creation and refinement of the modern field guide, so dominates his popular legacy. But while in the minds of millions of nature enthusiasts the name “Peterson” is nearly eponymous with the very idea of a field guide itself, to limit one’s attention to this admittedly monolithic achievement of such a talented and complex man is to misjudge the importance of his true legacy to humanity’s relationship with nature. Fortunately, Douglas Carlson’s biography is sufficiently expansive in scope to encompass the many facets of Peterson without being unwieldy in length or needlessly excessive in detail. Read the rest of this entry »