strange behaviors

Cool doings from the natural and human worlds

  • Richard Conniff

  • Reviews for Richard Conniff’s Books

     

    Ending Epidemics: A History of Escape from Contagion: “Ending Epidemics is an important book, deeply and lovingly researched, written with precision and elegance, a sweeping story of centuries of human battle with infectious disease. Conniff is a brilliant historian with a jeweler’s eye for detail. I think the book is a masterpiece.” Richard Preston, author of The Hot Zone and The Demon in the Freezer

    The Species Seekers:  Heroes, Fools, and the Mad Pursuit of Life on Earth by Richard Conniff is “a swashbuckling romp” that “brilliantly evokes that just-before Darwin era” (BBC Focus) and “an enduring story bursting at the seams with intriguing, fantastical and disturbing anecdotes” (New Scientist). “This beautifully written book has the verve of an adventure story” (Wall St. Journal)

    Swimming with Piranhas at Feeding Time by Richard Conniff  is “Hilariously informative…This book will remind you why you always wanted to be a naturalist.” (Outside magazine) “Field naturalist Conniff’s animal adventures … are so amusing and full color that they burst right off the page …  a quick and intensely pleasurable read.” (Seed magazine) “Conniff’s poetic accounts of giraffes drifting past like sail boats, and his feeble attempts to educate Vervet monkeys on the wonders of tissue paper will leave your heart and sides aching.  An excellent read.” (BBC Focus magazine)

  • Wall of the Dead

    A Memorial to Fallen Naturalists

    Ending Epidemics: Expanded Endnotes

     

  • Categories

«
»

The Making of a Naturalist: Bill Stanley

Posted by Richard Conniff on January 29, 2016

Bill Stanley, a mammalogist at the Field Museum, prematurely appeared on the Wall of the Dead last year, after succumbing  to a heart attack, age 58, while running a trapline for rare species in Ethiopia.

Now the Field Museum has posted a nice video about the flipping of a switch that turns a kid into a naturalist. Check it out.

This entry was posted on January 29, 2016 at 4:17 pm and is filed under The Species Seekers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “The Making of a Naturalist: Bill Stanley”

  1. roundjohn said

    February 10, 2016 at 7:35 pm

    Yes! Mothers and bearded Irishmen…is there anything they can’t do? (Aubrey de Grey isn’t Irish, is he?) Incidentally, what does it mean to “run a trapline?”

    Reply

    • Richard Conniff said

      February 10, 2016 at 8:14 pm

      Mammalogists typically set out box traps along a line, at 50-foot or so intervals. Then they have to go check them several times a day, usually at ungodly hours, up hill and down dale, to see if they have caught anything.

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

«
»