Tag: tropical forests
Spiders Might Be Quietly Disappearing
This article originally appeared in Knowable Magazine.
Jumping spiders are an obsession for me. But it wasn’t always so.
Although never a spider hater or an arachnophobe, I was pretty ambivalent about them for most of my life. Then I learned about jumping spiders: I’ve reported on their impressive vision (as good as a cat’s in some ways!), their surprising smarts (they make plans!), and the discovery that they have REM-like sleep (and may even dream!). I was hooked.
I
To Save the Planet, Save the Biggest Forests
The fire that started on Tubbs Lane in Calistoga, California, on the night of October 8, 2017, was like nothing the region had ever seen. It crackled and fumed its way swiftly through forests of oak, fir, bay laurel, and buckeye, over the hills in the night. It raced downhill, which is hard for fires to do, hurling fireballs to the south and west, and eventually laid waste to block after block of Santa Rosa, stopping about five miles