When Frank Nischk was a young, perhaps even bright-eyed, graduate student, he headed off to South America intending to study those most glorious of the world’s avifauna: hummingbirds. However due to a chain of unfortunate events wholly outside of his control that gutted the funding behind his planned research, he found himself cooling his heels in Columbia for an extended period of time, and finally securing a new research project that rather than presenting him with the daily opportunity to marvel at Nature’s veritable flying jewels instead led to him daily staring intently at German Cockroach…
… butts…
and the substances that emerge from them.
Fortunately for his present day readers, the experience changed both his perception of the myriad creatures that are rarely if ever classified as “charismatic” fauna as well as the direction of his career. Now a noted entomologist, science reporter, and film maker, he has for decades reveled in bringing the often overlooked wonders of some of the world’s most popularly familiar but least popularly loved arthropods to the general public – something he continues to do in his new book Of Cockroaches and Crickets; Learning to Love Creatures That Skitter and Jump.
As part of what makes reading this book so enjoyable involves the element of surprise contained in the author’s often personal stories that he uses to convey fascinating details about his subjects to the reader, I don’t wish to say too much lest it be spoiled, so I will leave you with two words that should inspire you to seek a copy of the book in order to learn more: cockroach tsunami.
