• Tracing Landscape Change through Dung Beetles

    Tracing Landscape Change through Dung Beetles

    By Olea Morris: In some ways, the dung beetles and I had a lot in common! Working as a volunteer on a farm in the highlands of Veracruz, Mexico, I was assigned the very unglamorous but important role of tending to the manure of the animals raised there.

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  • Insect Portrait: The Dung Beetle

    Insect Portrait: The Dung Beetle

    By Olea Morris The family of insects known as “dung beetle,” or escarabajos del estiercol, is a diverse one—even amongst those that make the same misty cloud forests of Mexico their home. Some, like Onthophagus corrosus, are jet black and no bigger than the fingernail of a pinky finger, while others, like Phanaeus endymion, have…

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  • Portrait of an Insect Lover: Alexandra Magro

    Portrait of an Insect Lover: Alexandra Magro

    By Birgit Müller I met Alexandra Magro this spring, at the first Grand Conference of the French Academy of Sciences entitled “Insects: Friends, Foes, and Models.” I had contributed a presentation of the blog series Silent Spring Continued at the poster session, hoping to attract insect lovers ready to tell me their stories of love…

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