lightsinthedistance-modernlife

Mechanical failure. Coloring books. Late night adventures. Kind strangers. My most recent collecting trip had all of these things. Settle in, because this is going to be a crazy blog post. As part of my research on the endemic arthropods of Arkansas, I've been collecting with Malaise traps and leaf litter extraction from four sites in Arkansas's Ouachita Mountains . It's a beautiful area with neat biogeographical implications, and as part of the Interior Highlands of the US, it's pretty much as high as you'll get between the Rockies and the Appalachians. Usually, getting to all of my traps in one day is pretty rushed and doesn't allow me to do any intensive collecting before I need to head to my next site. On this most recent trip, I decided to split it into two days so I could check out some new areas and collect more leaf litter with the extra time I had. One of the sites I wanted to check out was Roaring Branch Research Natural Area in Polk County. It's a...

I like to emphasize how science (and entomology in particular) is a field focused on curiosity and exploration. When I'm talking about entomology, I like to call it "the great equalizer." Why? Because it's so easy to make your own discoveries and find something notable. You don't even need an advanced degree--just an interest. Case in point? A Taiwanese shopkeeper named Hsu Kun-chin who likes gardening. This article is from July 2011 (I'm a little late on getting this posted) and is a great story. Hsu Kun-chin discovered new information about the mating habits and molting process of the ogre-faced spiders in the genus Deinopis . Ogre-faced spider: photo by Hsu Kun-chin I suppose I can understand why they call it ogre-faced. It's not as cute as the jumping spiders, but it's still neat.  I feel like Hsu Kun-chin and I would get along pretty well; we seem to share some common traits. For example, his family wasn't too keen on him keeping these spider...