Loaded with aerial plants and the millions of creatures dependent upon them, tropical tree crowns are the last and greatest ecological frontier. Hundreds of species - earthworms, frogs, lichens, flowers - never descend to earth during their lifetimes. Eight out of ten remain unnamed and unclassified by science. Donning rock-climbing gear to join researchers working 150 feet and more above the ground, Mark Moffett photographed strangler trees in Borneo, giant squirrels in India, and canopy bears in Colombia. He also entered the terrifying world of arboreal spiders and ants, photographing them under extreme magnification. Described as a "world-roving zoologist" by "National Geographic" magazine, Moffett has documented virtually every major active canopy research site. The immediacy of his writing and the intelligence of his photography make the canopy's fantastic architecture and unearthly inhabitants accessible to the general reader. In the tradition of the great 19th-century explorers, he captures the struggles of the individual scientists and the passions that enable them to brave perilous situations in pursuit of their work.
Dr. Mark W. Moffett, called "the Indiana Jones of Entomology" by the National Geographic Society, is a tropical ecologist and research associate at the Smithsonian Institution with a passion for discovering new species and behavior. Known as "Doctor Bugs," Mark has sat on a deadly snake in Peru, been chased up trees by Indian elephants, defended himself with a blowgun in Colombia, been lost in Borneo and New Guinea, walked into Afganistan from Iran, seen 100 foot wide army ant swarms in the Congo, and placed a scorpion on Conan O'Brien's head. For Mark, nothing is better than a good story, and his goal is to have people fall in love with the unexpected in nature, whether ant or spider, snake or frog.
Mark has the Lowell Thomas Medal from the Explorers Club, the Distinguished Explorer Award from the Roy Chapman Andrews Society, Yale University's Poynter Fellowship in Journalism, Harvard's Bowdoin Prize for writing, and numerous international awards in photography. He lectures across North America for the Creative Artists Agency and the National Geographic Society.
