Complete leafminer guide now available!

This weekend I finished the first edition of my Leafminers of North America e-book—1857 pages long (plus a 54-page table of contents, 20-page glossary, and 68-page bibliography), and illustrated with thousands of color photographs. To purchase it or learn more about it, you can click this image of the cover.

Although the book is a “complete” guide in terms of including all previously published information about North American leaf mines—heavily supplemented with previously unpublished observations—I have, as expected, continued to find new things to add on an almost daily basis. Just last week, my third paper with Owen Lonsdale was accepted for publication; it will describe another ten new species of agromyzid flies. And just yesterday, I went on a successful mission to collect more larvae of this Calycomyza species, which appears only in early June, has only been found at a single location, and is so far known only from unidentifiable females (but almost certainly represents another new species):

As a bonus, on my way to look for that species, I discovered two new larval hosts for the adorable Orchestes pallicornis (Curculionidae).

So I already have plans to complete an updated second edition of Leafminers of North America by the end of 2020. My current thought is that I will release the first installment in January, so that I’ll have time to finish up a number of papers as well as get started on a brand new project: a hostplant-based guide to North American sawfly larvae (only 37 of which are leafminers, out of about 1000 species).

I will of course be posting more about that project as it gets underway. In the meantime, anyone who has purchased the full first edition of Leafminers of North America before the end of July 2019 (when I will be teaching my week-long leafminer course at the Eagle Hill Institute in Maine) will receive a free subscription to the second edition.

And for those who just want to contribute to my ongoing efforts to uncover natural history mysteries and share my findings with the world, there is always the “Make a Donation” button at the top of the right sidebar. If everyone reading this chipped in the same amount I do every year to keep this blog ad-free ($30), I could do this full-time! Thank you for reading, whether or not you are able to make a financial contribution.