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Caterpillar Hunter Makes Visit to Dallas
Dr. David Wagner, author of one of the best field guides to caterpillars, will be making a visit to the Museum of Nature and Science in Fair Park later this month on April 29.
Wagner's presentation, "Tales of Woe, Deception, and Wonder: The Myriad Defenses of Texan Caterpillars,"; is sponsored by local butterfly breeding company, Butterflies Unlimited. It will be held at 7:00 pm. Admission is free. Wagner, author of the 2005 Caterpillars of Eastern North America, emphasizes the array of fascinating adaptations that caterpillars employ to elude predators (especially birds).
In a 2006 interview with the New York Times, Wagner waxed eloquent about the wonders of these often overlooked insect forms. "You don't need to go to the Amazon," he said. "You don't need to go to New Guinea. You go out your back door with a hand lens and you'll find some pretty amazing things that a lot of people have overlooked."
In a presentation suited to a wide age range of nature lovers, Dr. Wagner will show a splendid battery of macrophotographic images that showcase the wonderfully varied and deceitful ploys that caterpillars employ to dupe birds and other would-be predators. Along the way he will touch on silk, spices, and other stuff you'd never associate with a caterpillars. The talk features a menagerie of bizarre and beautiful creatures from his book which he will have on hand to sell and autograph.
Dr. Wagner is Associate Professor of Ecology at the University of Connecticut.
The Museum of Nature and Science (formerly the Dallas Museum of Natural History) is located at 3535 Grand Avenue, at Dallas's Fair Park.
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