Come to our Visitor Center on March 30, at 5pm, and you will meet a scientist with non-stop curiosity who’s identified 1000 new species of Formicidae, mostly in the protected area of Madagascar, but who still enjoys learning about our local ants: Dr. Brian Fisher.

As a boy, Brian knew he wanted to work outdoors, in nature. Majoring in Biology at the University of Iowa, he intended to study tropical plants, but while doing field work in the rainforest of Panama, as insects showered down on him from above, the “love bug bit”, the diversity of insects in that tropical world pulled him into their sphere. Now the demise of many species in the variety-basket that is Madagascar explains why Brian says, “Save an ant, save a planet”; there, especially, he’s learned ants are the glue that holds forests together.

Dr. Fisher is presently the curator of entomology at the Cal Academy of Sciences & adjunct professor at SFSU and UC Berkeley.

He has established the Madagascar Biodiversity Center, has trained dozens of international graduate students in modern systematics & biodiversity methods, so they can use ants to track biodiversity across the globe, has written over 130 peer
reviewed articles, & so much more.

(Above: one of Brian’s favorites, the Trap-jaw ant.)