what got me interested in insects well
my parents report that i was watching
ants when i was in diapers so i don’t
really recall the first moments but i
was always there and supposedly i could
identify and I knew each individual ant
by her name so i would say that one’s
Fred and Peter and Sally and Sue and
I’ve completely forgotten their
individual name I can’t tell them apart
that well anymore but as a kid I
apparently knew every hand I was a
graduate student I came to Harvard to
send the other EO wilson I didn’t really
understand what Harvard was about and it
was like a lot of like tension and like
nervous people and super egos and so
forth and I wanted to get out of their
kind of super fast so i passed my oral
exams and get money to go to Asia and I
realized if I went over there and look
for all these great stories the stories
that I wanted to find of all these ants
and creatures that people might think i
was sitting around smoking something
with a guru somewhere making stuff up
unless like a document somehow so i got
a book on how to photograph supermodels
and figured out that you needed a main
light a fill like and a hair light and
with these three lights you can get a
kind of a studio effect that’s quite
beautiful so my aunt’s have a nice hair
light so there’s a sweetly backlit and
it gives them a like nice dimensionality
and also separates them from their
background and all kinds of things so
all you have to do is build this studio
into the front of your camera and carry
it around with you so I figured that out
patience is of course important and you
have to be able to be in one place no
matter what it is in nature for a long
period of time and it’s kind of ironic
because living in New York with all the
action activity and then you go to the
jungle and you’re sometimes just sitting
there and utter quiet and not hearing a
human voice for days as you’re waiting
for a flower to unfold or a snake to and
coil but when the moment happened to
have it in reality have the truth you
have the truth of that moment and people
respect that I mean it’s easily some of
these things are easily faked and you
see fakes all the time but the true
moment is a distinct thing and the the
movement even of an ant has a lot of
action and emotion to it if you catch
even an ant in its activity so that
difference is what makes National
Geographic great because they go after
these true moments how did I earn the
nickname Indiana Jones of entomology
well I I guess I get in a lot of battles
with small critters so one way or
another I tracked them down and I
actually have never really been
seriously bitten by anything
surprisingly most small creatures
respect me I like to thank and I know
how to approach them and handle them
without hurting them or getting hurt in
return so one way or another I just kind
of like it’s it’s a skill i have had
from my agent diapers watching ants this
is a capacity to to deal with insects
and and understand their world and get
down to their level and see them from
their own level where they tower over
you where their impressive creatures
well was fairly worried about the Frog
as well because it’s a it’s a kind of a
long story i can tell bits of it but to
get to this frog you have to fly through
a tiny port city and then
rent a boat and go up a river and it’s
quite elaborate and very few people have
ever done it so we arrived at this small
town rented a boat try to go up river
and the water was too low in a rental
boat the couldn’t get up with this
engine and we were dropped off by the
side of the river by someone who was
probably a drug smuggler who was very
angry that we didn’t pay him the whole
amount to go the whole way and we worked
our way to an Indian village and get a
dugout canoe through some drinking of
rice wine and lots of negotiations over
the next day and we got this dugout
canoe and we had to drag it up river for
two days because the water was so low I
had to wear shorts and my skin I’m a
pale pasty guy and so I got sunburned so
bad on my legs that I had these huge
blisters so by the time I got to the
frogs in this remote village I could
barely walk I had to walk like
Frankenstein on stiff legs and so we got
to the frogs and I was worried because
if the frogs touched me they can
potentially kill a person so I basically
covered myself with plastic and I info
cell envelope my legs with plastic and
my assistant who is a part-time male
stripper from Panama was quite a
character he was a big meaty guy who
could who is very strong and like to
show off and so because I couldn’t move
my legs he would lower me to the ground
and in front of the frog which would
stop start hopping towards me and I
would take the pictures and he would
pick me up and move me away so that the
Frog couldn’t touch me so I managed the
frog pictures with this technique well
answer serious fighters you know the
Bible says go to the ant thou sluggard
consider her ways and be wise and I
don’t know if the Solomon King Solomon
referring to their fighting skills he
was probably referring more to the fact
that they say
their food for periods of where they
were hungry and they were you know
careful about the way they organized
their lives in other ways but ants first
and foremost for most people our
fighters because when they see us they
are willing to be kamikazes and aunt is
willing to die for the cause all the
time and there’s even an ant in Borneo
that will blow up this whole body will
blow up so it’s a literal kamikaze
suicide bomber aunt when it touches an
enemy improve I accidentally set on the
most lethal snake in the Americas which
is the fair to lance and I would not
recommend doing this but I if you do do
this you should do it correctly you
shouldn’t sit exactly as I did straight
on its head and I apparently compress
its head down so wasn’t able to to bite
me back but the whole thing I should
clarify was an error and I don’t think
the snake enjoyed it any more than I did
how do I protect myself when I’m in the
field I don’t know I I never have
troubles in the field for some reason I
seem to be unnatural for what I do I’m
really bitten by anything I don’t get
sick I’ve been with people who’ve gotten
various diseases and so forth but I
never get sick and so in a way for me
it’s more natural than New York City I
am much more likely to get lost or make
a wrong term in new mark New York City
than I am in Borneo
my parents report that i was watching
ants when i was in diapers so i don’t
really recall the first moments but i
was always there and supposedly i could
identify and I knew each individual ant
by her name so i would say that one’s
Fred and Peter and Sally and Sue and
I’ve completely forgotten their
individual name I can’t tell them apart
that well anymore but as a kid I
apparently knew every hand I was a
graduate student I came to Harvard to
send the other EO wilson I didn’t really
understand what Harvard was about and it
was like a lot of like tension and like
nervous people and super egos and so
forth and I wanted to get out of their
kind of super fast so i passed my oral
exams and get money to go to Asia and I
realized if I went over there and look
for all these great stories the stories
that I wanted to find of all these ants
and creatures that people might think i
was sitting around smoking something
with a guru somewhere making stuff up
unless like a document somehow so i got
a book on how to photograph supermodels
and figured out that you needed a main
light a fill like and a hair light and
with these three lights you can get a
kind of a studio effect that’s quite
beautiful so my aunt’s have a nice hair
light so there’s a sweetly backlit and
it gives them a like nice dimensionality
and also separates them from their
background and all kinds of things so
all you have to do is build this studio
into the front of your camera and carry
it around with you so I figured that out
patience is of course important and you
have to be able to be in one place no
matter what it is in nature for a long
period of time and it’s kind of ironic
because living in New York with all the
action activity and then you go to the
jungle and you’re sometimes just sitting
there and utter quiet and not hearing a
human voice for days as you’re waiting
for a flower to unfold or a snake to and
coil but when the moment happened to
have it in reality have the truth you
have the truth of that moment and people
respect that I mean it’s easily some of
these things are easily faked and you
see fakes all the time but the true
moment is a distinct thing and the the
movement even of an ant has a lot of
action and emotion to it if you catch
even an ant in its activity so that
difference is what makes National
Geographic great because they go after
these true moments how did I earn the
nickname Indiana Jones of entomology
well I I guess I get in a lot of battles
with small critters so one way or
another I tracked them down and I
actually have never really been
seriously bitten by anything
surprisingly most small creatures
respect me I like to thank and I know
how to approach them and handle them
without hurting them or getting hurt in
return so one way or another I just kind
of like it’s it’s a skill i have had
from my agent diapers watching ants this
is a capacity to to deal with insects
and and understand their world and get
down to their level and see them from
their own level where they tower over
you where their impressive creatures
well was fairly worried about the Frog
as well because it’s a it’s a kind of a
long story i can tell bits of it but to
get to this frog you have to fly through
a tiny port city and then
rent a boat and go up a river and it’s
quite elaborate and very few people have
ever done it so we arrived at this small
town rented a boat try to go up river
and the water was too low in a rental
boat the couldn’t get up with this
engine and we were dropped off by the
side of the river by someone who was
probably a drug smuggler who was very
angry that we didn’t pay him the whole
amount to go the whole way and we worked
our way to an Indian village and get a
dugout canoe through some drinking of
rice wine and lots of negotiations over
the next day and we got this dugout
canoe and we had to drag it up river for
two days because the water was so low I
had to wear shorts and my skin I’m a
pale pasty guy and so I got sunburned so
bad on my legs that I had these huge
blisters so by the time I got to the
frogs in this remote village I could
barely walk I had to walk like
Frankenstein on stiff legs and so we got
to the frogs and I was worried because
if the frogs touched me they can
potentially kill a person so I basically
covered myself with plastic and I info
cell envelope my legs with plastic and
my assistant who is a part-time male
stripper from Panama was quite a
character he was a big meaty guy who
could who is very strong and like to
show off and so because I couldn’t move
my legs he would lower me to the ground
and in front of the frog which would
stop start hopping towards me and I
would take the pictures and he would
pick me up and move me away so that the
Frog couldn’t touch me so I managed the
frog pictures with this technique well
answer serious fighters you know the
Bible says go to the ant thou sluggard
consider her ways and be wise and I
don’t know if the Solomon King Solomon
referring to their fighting skills he
was probably referring more to the fact
that they say
their food for periods of where they
were hungry and they were you know
careful about the way they organized
their lives in other ways but ants first
and foremost for most people our
fighters because when they see us they
are willing to be kamikazes and aunt is
willing to die for the cause all the
time and there’s even an ant in Borneo
that will blow up this whole body will
blow up so it’s a literal kamikaze
suicide bomber aunt when it touches an
enemy improve I accidentally set on the
most lethal snake in the Americas which
is the fair to lance and I would not
recommend doing this but I if you do do
this you should do it correctly you
shouldn’t sit exactly as I did straight
on its head and I apparently compress
its head down so wasn’t able to to bite
me back but the whole thing I should
clarify was an error and I don’t think
the snake enjoyed it any more than I did
how do I protect myself when I’m in the
field I don’t know I I never have
troubles in the field for some reason I
seem to be unnatural for what I do I’m
really bitten by anything I don’t get
sick I’ve been with people who’ve gotten
various diseases and so forth but I
never get sick and so in a way for me
it’s more natural than New York City I
am much more likely to get lost or make
a wrong term in new mark New York City
than I am in Borneo
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