A Vote for Moffett is a Vote for Ants

My old friend Mark Moffett is one of the pioneers of high canopy research, dragging his cameras into the upper reached of the rain forest to learn amazing new things and take some amazing photographs. He's also spent considerable time on and beneath the forest floor studying ants. You know those research projects where they excavate an entire leaf cutter ant colony in order to understand how their underground labyrinths are laid out and function as a sort of earth-encrusted organism? That was Mark. Well, others have done it but he was a pioneer in that research.

I met Mark when he was in the next building over working with E.O. Wilson, and I've followed his activities and career as he's published a number of interesting books and continued to bring attention to the scientific interest and environmental concerns of the world's rain forests (from The High Frontier: Exploring the Tropical Rainforest CanopyRain Forests Books) to Adventures Among Ants: A Global Safari with a Cast of TrillionsInsect & Spider Books)). And ants.

Bug Girl just let me know that Mark is now up for a Labby award. You can go here and vote for him. He's the weaver ant.

Categories

More like this

[a guest post by myrmecologist Andrea Lucky] Andrea & her intrepid field team in New Guinea It was a dark and stormy night... ...actually, it was a dark and stormy morning.  The dawn of the 7th day of ceaseless frigid rain to be precise, and I was reminiscing about the grand old days one week…
"When you have seen one ant, one bird, one tree, you have not seen them all." -E.O. Wilson Sure, there are entire worlds within our world that we never even give a second thought to. There's an entire subterranean Universe to explore, and you might get the feeling to do it if you listen to Mecca…
from Darwin's Natural Heir Directed by David Dugan; produced by Neil Patterson I am a specialized advocate: an advocate for the rest of life. I hope that doesn't sound pompous, but all of us should be advocates for the rest of life. -E.O. Wilson Last Tuesday I visited the National Geographic…
Martialis heureka Rabeling & Verhaagh 2008 drawing by the inimitable Barrett Klein for PNAS Most scientific discoveries these days emerge through carefully planned and controlled research programs.  Every now and again, though, something unexpected just pops up in a distant tropical jungle. …

The Mesa Arts Center hosts a series of four National Geographic Society talks each year, and my significant other and I got to see Mark Moffett last year. He's an outstanding speaker, a funny guy, and a fabulous close-up photographer. What a treat his talk was!

By Pete Moulton (not verified) on 27 Jun 2011 #permalink

I'd love to hear it, Greg. He's a character, and no mistake.

By Pete Moulton (not verified) on 27 Jun 2011 #permalink