The Devils River, in southwestern Texas, runs, mirage-like, along the edge of the Chihuahuan Desert, through some of the most barren countryside in the United States. Access to the river is limited; unless you're in a kayak, the only way to travel upstream is along a skein of rutted dirt roads. It was on one of these roads that, a few years ago, David Wagner noticed a shrub that seemed to him peculiarly filled with promise.
Wagner is an entomologist who teaches at the University of Connecticut. He has close-cropped silvery hair and a square jaw and bears a passing resemblance to George C. Scott playing General Buck Turgidson. The way other people might recall a marvellous restaurant or a heartbreaking vista, Wagner remembers a propitious plant. He has friends who own a house along the Devils River, and each time he has visited them he has stopped by the exact same shrub to investigate. No luck. This past October, I was travelling with him when he tried yet again. He spread a white nylon sheet on the ground, then started whacking the bush with a pole to dislodge anything that might be clinging to it.
"Un-fucking-believable!" he exclaimed. I was whacking a plant nearby, just for the hell of it. Wagner held out his hand. A caterpillar about three-quarters of an inch long was wriggling across his palm. It looked brownish and totally ordinary until I examined it under a loupe, at which point it was revealed to be flamboyantly striped, with yellow and red splotches and two black, hornlike protuberances sticking out of its back. Based on a series of taxonomic calculations, Wagner was convinced that the caterpillar was the juvenile form of an exceptionally rare moth known as Ursia furtiva.
Esta historia es de la edición March 20, 2023 de The New Yorker.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 8500 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición March 20, 2023 de The New Yorker.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 8500 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
TRIPLE FAULT
A meal is never just a meal in a Luca Guadagnino movie; each bite is a prelude to a kiss, every feast a form of foreplay.
NIGHT MUSIC
“Stereophonic” and Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club” on Broadway.
LITTLE OLD HER
Is Taylor Swift doing too much?
BEASTLY MATTERS
Where the logic behind the concern for animal welfare begins and ends.
PULSE
He footed off his shoes, the logs balanced on an arm, and tugged the door shut.
TOWER IN FLAMES
What kind of right is academic freedom?
THE BATTLE FOR ATTENTION
How do we hold on to what matters in a distracted age?
ON NATIVE GROUNDS
Deb Haaland faces the cruel history of the agency she now leads.
DESIGN FOR LIVING
Can converting office towers into apartments save empty downtowns from ruin?
HOROSCOPES WRITTEN BY MY MOTHER
Your zodiac alignment this month is governed by Venus, the planet of intuition, something my daughter Bess seems to lack.