What Would Jane Do?

If there was ever a person whom I wanted to remain immortal, it would probably be Dr. Jane Goodall. It was therefore devastating to learn of her passing last week. I do not imagine the tributes and anecdotes will subside anytime soon, nor should they. She remains an indelible, near tangible part of everyone who she ever crossed paths with. That is a kind of immortality to treasure.

Wikimedia Commons

Nearly everyone I know has either met Dr. Goodall in person, or heard her speak, or both. She toured more than Taylor Swift, I swear. It would be interesting to learn where she didn’t visit. The list would be a lot shorter than where she did travel to. I know I saw her at least once, probably twice, but it was long before the age of the internet, let alone cell phones and selfies, so I have no record.

I do recall, after her presentation, inquiring about the pack of African wild dogs she followed with her then husband, Hugo van Lawick, that was made into a television documentary called The Story of Solo, after the book Solo: The Story of an African Wild Dog. She told me that an epidemic of distemper wiped out much of the pack, but they were recovering. She thanked me for asking.

It is truly remarkable how far-reaching her persona has become. Chimpanzees became a wonderful vehicle for driving much greater missions. She understood that the meaning of life is joy and reverence (you get “love” when you combine the two). She celebrated curiosity as the best of all qualities in humans, other primates, and indeed all animals. Curiosity crosses gender, politics, religions, languages, all the demographics that are supposed to make us different from each other.

We rightfully mourn her passing, as we do with all friends, but this grief feels different. It is at once both deeper and more liberating than average. Liberating? Yes, she gives us, by example, license to buck standards that no longer serve us well, in the scientific community, and in humanity at large. She is a gift that will always keep on giving, through her disciples, the students of her disciples, ad infinitum.

She also made courage look effortless. I suspect she had more trepidation in facing her critical male colleagues than in approaching wild chimpanzees, but you would never know it. At least she did have one great man in her corner: Louis S. B. Leakey, the world-renowned anthropologist, selected three women, including Goodall, to conduct long-term field research on the other three great apes. Dian Fossey was tasked with learning about gorillas, specifically Mountain Gorilla, while Birutė Galdikas observed orangutans.

I will continue to speak of Dr. Goodall in the present tense, because her legacy is still very much alive, her spirit burning intensely in those inspired by her. I continue to see her everywhere, in the eyes of zookeepers managing great apes, in field biologists who ask themselves “What would Jane do?” when faced with a seemingly intractable quandry, and in the faces of executives of environmental nonprofits who passionately raise funds to protect habitat.

What I personally need to be reminded of right now, is that our human culture wars are meaningless, binary politics a waste of time, and that anger takes more out of me than love. Jane exemplifies peace beyond all else. She has an unexpected elegance for someone who spent so much time in the “jungle,” and treats everyone as an equal. She makes time for everyone who needs her counsel.

Cultivating hope is the undying mission left to us by Goodall. That is how we must honor her. We have it within us to do that, to make the planet safe for all beings, including fellow humans, fellow primates, even “lowly” invertebrates. Our best acts of resistance to the real and existential threats we face now may be to simply turn our backs to them, not in the sense of refusing to bear witness, but so we can create something completely new, just, and equitable for all species.

Tonight, for dinner, my partner and I had leftovers of a vegan dish she prepared earlier in the week. We can strive to do more of that, less of the meat-based recipes. We can do more of a lot of positive things, frankly. I will simply ask myself, “What would Jane do?”

Book Festivals, Royalties, and Other Author Things

Here at the end of September, I am gearing up for the Heartland Book Festival in Kansas City, Missouri, on Saturday, October 11. With your help, we can recruit a legion of new bugwatchers, and change how we relate to other species, and each other. Allow me to let you in on upcoming events, and some secrets of the author profession that might surprise you.

Got my poster, courtesy of Poor Richard's here in Leavenworth, Kansas.

I cannot tell you how excited and honored I am to be participating as a vendor in the Heartland Book Festival. I will be one of only twenty-five authors selected from over two hundred applicants. This is perhaps the first time I have truly felt like a professional writer and author. I am hoping that this is only the beginning. Please recommend to me, in the comments, other book festivals that you have enjoyed, where nonfiction authors are celebrated alongside the novelists.

Speaking engagements are another way for authors to get traction in the marketplace. I will be presenting a talk on spiders for Topeka Audubon the evening of October 7, then another bugwatching presentation for Gardeners Connect on November 11 in Kansas City, Missouri.

There are already dates taken up on my 2026 calendar, too. On January 8, I will be presenting a webinar for Smithsonian Associates. I will announce when tickets go on sale. February 10, 2026, you will find me at the Plan it Native Landscapes Conference in Kansas City, Missouri, where I will present “Beyond Bees and Butterflies: Embracing and Conserving Local Insects.” After that program, I am open to invitations for any other events you may want to suggest.

There is a persistent myth that authors earn much of their living from royalties on sales of their books. This may be true for Stephen King, but certainly not for those of us in niche markets like natural history. What usually happens is that the publisher pays an author a cash advance to begin the book, maybe another once the manuscript is completed, and perhaps another once the book goes on the market. Ideally, brisk sales quickly make up for the advances and the book breaks even. Only after that point do royalties start producing positive numbers. None of my books, to this point, have produced royalties. That is not uncommon, but there is no reason we can’t buck that trend. How do we do that?

Much as I loathe Amazon, the retail giant, posting positive reader reviews there can boost sales considerably. The same can be said for Goodreads, and other such platforms. Book reviews in magazines, newspapers, blogs, podcasts, and social media are also helpful. Thank you for considering.

Invitations to do book signings, or present at conferences and meetings, are always welcome. Obviously, remote, virtual appearances are easiest at this time, when airline travel is undependable at best, Covid is making a resurgence, and clubs and organizations are facing financial hardship due to cuts in federal grants and other sources of funding. That said, if I can string together more than a couple of engagements in any given city, or small region, I will certainly entertain in-person events.

Thank you for all of your moral support, book purchases, in-kind donations, and other help to this point. I hope that I am doing right by you, and that I get the chance to express my appreciation in person at some point.

Bugwatching Book Launch

My new book, Bugwatching: The Art, Joy, and Importance of Observing Insects, had its first event last Saturday at the Linda Hall Library in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. It was well attended both in person and via a livestream, with over 600 individuals registered.

Linda Hall Library is a science library with many historically important holdings. They also create professional quality in-house exhibits, and host speakers on a variety of topics. With any luck I will be invited back to present again. The staff is friendly, and a true joy to work with.

This past Wednesday I was one of the panelists for a Grow Native! webinar, titled “Dispelling Myths of Native Gardening.” Grow Native! is the native plant marketing, and educational arm, of Missouri Prairie Foundation, another excellent organization. I think I gained as much from the other panelists as I gave in my own expertise and experience.

Please consider booking me for your own event, as I have few scheduled thus far. I do have one high profile engagement on Thursday, January 8, 2026, but I am not at liberty to disclose additional information at this time. Watch this space and I will update as I am able.

I apologize for not keeping up with the comments over the last month. I was on vacation, and then had these two programs to prepare for. I am currently caught up, and intend to stay that way. I typically review comments every Tuesday, at the least.

I have been trying to remember to use my phone to take photos, like this one tonight of an immature female Round-tipped Conehead katydid in our yard.

My photos are also severely backlogged. I have become frightened by the potential of losing them in the uploading process (I frequently cannot safely eject the SD card from my laptop, for example). Consequently, I have not uploaded cards in their entirety since mid-September, 2022. I take far too many photos, and that makes the process daunting as well. I wish I was better organized, but this is the current situation. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

My dear friend Alexandra Rose (an oceanographer), and her mom, Pam, have always been supportive of my work.

As we continue to face collective challenges such as the effects of climate change, the rise of authoritarian regimes at home and abroad, and the uncertainties of labor and the marketplace, I wish all of you the best. Please keep up your own ”good trouble,” your art, your science communication, or whatever gives you joy, hope, peace, and confidence.

Accidental Achievement

When we lived in Colorado Springs, I would walk our neighborhood regularly, if not daily, unless the weather was severe. Little did I know that one such constitutional would yield something globally significant.

My photo of the male moth.

On the afternoon of November 5, 2020, passing a vacant lot up the street that I had passed by almost daily, I noticed small moths flying around. Many moth species fly late into autumn, so that alone did not intrigue me. Many moths fly during daylight hours, so that was not unusual, either. Curious me wanted to document the thing anyway, but that was easier said than done. The moths were wary, and quickly disappeared into weeds when they landed, camouflaged.

Finally, one of them landed on the sidewalk, and as I recall a bit of a breeze kept it from taking flight again immediately. Not the best of photos, but I put it on iNaturalist anyway. I wasn’t even completely sure of the family, but I figured something so common would be recognized by an expert eventually.

My iNaturalist entry.

Fast forward to November of 2024, and I receive an email from Andrew Warren informing me that not only was this moth a species new to science, but that it also qualified to be in a new genus. I was shocked. How could something that abundant be completely overlooked until now?

It turns out I had the correct family (Crambidae), but obviously could not have put a more specific name to it. It didn’t have one! The paper describing the moth is now published, and anyone can view it here. I was not at liberty to share this story until after the publication, as a common courtesy to the authors.

Better image of a male, photo © Andrew Warren.

Allow me to briefly summarize, if you do not want the long story in the journal article. The moth has so far been collected between October 20 and November 22. Mine is so far the only record for El Paso County, but it is suspected to occur all along the Front Range, possibly into Wyoming in the north and New Mexico in the south. This is based on the host plant for the caterpillar, which is a grass known as Sand Dropseed, Sporobolus cryptandrus.

The larvae probably feed on the roots of the plant, because the moths have only been found in situations where the dropseed was either mowed or trampled. Seriously. Where the plants are upright, no moths. Sure enough, the vacant lot where I found mine was mowed regularly, much to my dismay until I learned this story.

The female moth, photo © Christian Nunes.

The females of the moth, which now bears the name Coloradactria frigida, are flightless, with heavy bodies and short wings. No wonder I never saw those. They certainly must emit a pheromone to attract the males.

Other known localities for the moth are in Douglas County around Castle Rock, and in Weld County, all in Colorado. Late autumn searching elsewhere should certainly turn up new records.

A mating pair of the moths, photo © Christian Nunes.

The lesson I have learned from this is that you can, and should, never assume anything when it comes to entomology. You do not even have to know what you are doing to make an earth-shattering discovery. We collectively know very little. It is your curiosity that counts. That, and your willingness to share what you find with others. Do the documenting with photographs, videos, and sound recordings, and put them out there. Please.

Source: Warren, Andrew D., Clifford D. Ferris, Bernard Landry, Jeremy Authier, Theo Leger, Julia Bilat, and Christian A. Nunes. 2025. “A New Genus and Species of Crambinae (Pyraloidea: Crambidae) With Brachypterous Females From Colorado, U.S.A.,” Journal of the Lepidopterists’ Society 79 (2): 73-84.