On July 11^th 1998, my life was ominously transformed by an encounter with the once-familiar subjects of my research. Having been hired by the University of Wyoming a decade earlier to study the ecology and management of rangeland grasshoppers, I thought that I pretty much knew these insects.
I had spent that fateful morning gathering data from research plots. A week earlier, my field crew reported that to the north, where deep draws were etched into the prairie, the grasshoppers were reaching biblical proportions. I decided to see for myself. The earthen banks rose above my head as I descended into the gulch, where the insects had massed into a bristling carpet of wings and legs. My arrival incited pandemonium. Grasshoppers ricocheted off my face, tangled their spiny legs into my hair, and began to crawl into the gaps between shirt buttons.
In a recurring nightmare from my childhood, a ...
