Don't Forget the Roundabouts
Entomology, education, conservation and genealogy
My name is Simon Leather. I am an applied entomologist, but by that I don’t mean someone who can identify a huge number of species. I am not a taxonomist. Rather, I am a competent field entomologist who can recognise most insects to Order, some Orders to Family and within some families I am able to recognise individual species, especially if they are of economic importance. I fell in love with insects when I was a child in Jamaica, and discovered the complexity of ant societies, although I was also a great fan of orb web spiders, or crab spiders as my brother and I used to call them.
Visit Don't Forget the Roundabouts
Recent posts
- The most difficult thing I have ever had to write – Insects – A Very Short Introduction
- Pick & Mix 65 – beetle based drones, biodiversity, climate change, resilient forests, beavers and rewilding, citizen science and a farewell to Dynamic Ecology blog
- Assignments with benefits – materially rewarding student work
- Scorpion flies – not as scary as they sound or look
- Pick & Mix 64 – big questions in ecology, entomological colonialism, the return of the Nature Table, ID apps, saving insects, rewilding, making your garden insect friendly and how big?!!
- Foreign holiday 2021 – over the border to Scotland 😊
- Reflection – a much needed (and missed) aspect of academic life
- Pick & Mix 63 – haikus, red leaves, insect opera, insect declines (again), nature friendly cities, dung beetles, bird names and pollinators
- Citizen Science Rules – The ‘humble’ amateur is the backbone of entomology – laud them, don’t scorn them
- Planes, trains and automobiles – insect killers?