Derham Giuliani - Nature Observer

The Magazine - September 12, 2013 - Down from the Mountaintop

Years ago I met a man who told me a secret that has stayed evergreen in my mind. Derham Giuliani was a naturalist, a self-taught — and the foremost — expert on the insects and amphibians of the dry lands in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada.

Across four decades, in a labor of patient, painstaking love, he uncovered the hidden lives of the tiny, fragile, and remarkable creatures that live in this vast, harsh, and unremarked-upon corner of the country. Over and over, he made discoveries about them that no one else knew.

Derham lived in what the IRS would classify as poverty, but by all accounts wanted for little. He lived alone, and was happy that way. He observed, he learned, and he taught.

October 2010 obit - A memory – Derham Giuliani

#nature - #insects