“I don’t know what I am going to do,” mourned the Bug Night-er with tears in his eyes. He was bereft at the thought of no macroinvertebrates in his future until 2020. The female White Coat tried to bolster his spirits with the promise of field work in the summer but he was inconsolable. The […]

The Bug Night-er put one arm over her head, as if she was a cat, grooming her face—except she wasn’t a cat. She was trying to emulate her favorite bug for charades. “Limnophilidae!” shouted another Bug Night-er with inappropriate confidence. The charader was deflated. She attempted to emulate a dorsal hump on her second abdominal […]

“How many times have we told you,” asked the insect. It sighed the sigh of the most world weary being ever. The Bug Night-er was stunned. He had heard that the bugs could speak to volunteers but he thought that it was a metaphor, like a horse whisperer. “The White Coats need you to organize […]

“It’s not rocket science,” breathed the insect, “We’ve been through this more times than I have compound eyes.” The insect was so close that the man could feel and smell the insect’s hot breath. The insect held the man in its mandibles and considerable tarsi. It was no surprise that it smelled of rotten leaves. […]

It is sad but true. There is no Bug Night tomorrow, April 17, 2019. We expect to be back in the laboratory saddle on April 24, 2019.

There are some things that you just can’t dial in, thought the quietly competent Bug Night-er. Take Bug Nights, for instance. It was an all-hands-on deck, roll up your sleeves kind of thing. She had heard the White Coats whispering about legendary Bug Night-ers who took home specimens to identify over the summer. She couldn’t […]

It’s a changing world but the security guard did what he could to walk the line between safety and friendliness. He had known the White Coats since the beginning when they first started in the laboratory nearly a quarter century ago. He poked his head in at the laboratory to see if he was needed […]

It can be difficult to find balance. Some Bug Night-ers quietly worked on their samples and began ramping down at 8:30 PM. Some were ready to go much earlier. And then there was the Bug Night-er who couldn’t get enough. He came early and the White Coats could barely drag him off his sample at […]

The two White Coats moved through the sit-down and stand-up rooms. As they glided through the rooms in figures-eight, stopping here and there to check a sample or answer a question, they each thought independently what a diverse group were the Bug Night people. There were some with a science background but many more whose […]

Sometimes, it seems like the minutiae of the days just suck the life out of a person, she thought. Life was filled with a series of remembering usernames and passwords, keeping up with email, and filing hard copy and electronic documents. Once in a while, someone would call but it was rare to break the […]

She was just out for a stroll on a Wednesday evening when her life changed forever. The trail was always quiet and it gave her time to think about what was important in life. She did not have to think long. Her life had little purpose and she felt that she was not making a […]