Through a complicated series of events, I became acquainted with a former student of Dr. Hubbell's, Ted Cohn, now retired from the biology department of San Diego University. Ted spends part of his year working on the camel cricket collection at the University of Michigan and agreed to identify my pets. After I sent him some killed, preserved samples of my Ozark camel crickets, he telephoned me in great excitement. He explained that Dr. Hubbell had always been puzzled by these camel crickets. They were of the same species as those just a few miles away and yet the males had notched pronota, often, at least in the older individuals, ripped and torn.
Some male insects offer females that they are courting a food gift from their own body.
No one had ever seen them mate. Samples from my area were few. I, in turn, had questions to ask him. One of the great benefits of writing my book was interviewing and getting to know a number of talented and interesting entomologists and Ted was one of them. The book is done now, but the fun goes on.