Meet the Wisconsin Bug Guy, who identifies 2,500 insects a year
SABINE MARTIN
Updated
Trillions of once hidden baby bugs are in the air, on the trees and perching upon people’s shirts, hats and even faces. Illinois is at the center of this year's double cicada emergence (AP Video: Melissa Winder)
Sometimes they are delivered alive in a Tupperware container that someone has neatly packed. Sometimes they arrive at PJ Liesch’s lab in a paper envelope, leaving him to piece together an insect’s broken wing or leg to identify it.
UW-Madison Insect Diagnostic Lab director Patrick "PJ" Liesch says identifying some of the specimens he receives takes moments. “And then there are other cases where I might have to spend 20 minutes or two hours or two days to figure out exactly what something is.”
A bald-faced hornet nest hangs from the ceiling of the UW-Madison Insect Diagnostic Lab. Director PJ Liesch caught the entomology bug early, as kid growing up next to a Racine County dairy farm and a pond.
OWEN ZILIAK photos, STATE JOURNAL
UW-Madison Insect Diagnostic Lab director Patrick “PJ” Liesch says identifying some of the specimens he receives takes moments. “And then there are other cases where I might have to spend 20 minutes or two hours or two days to figure out exactly what something is.”
UW-Madison Insect Diagnostic Lab director Patrick "PJ" Liesch says identifying some of the specimens he receives takes moments. “And then there are other cases where I might have to spend 20 minutes or two hours or two days to figure out exactly what something is.”
A bald-faced hornet nest hangs from the ceiling of the UW-Madison Insect Diagnostic Lab. Director PJ Liesch caught the entomology bug early, as kid growing up next to a Racine County dairy farm and a pond.
UW-Madison Insect Diagnostic Lab director Patrick “PJ” Liesch says identifying some of the specimens he receives takes moments. “And then there are other cases where I might have to spend 20 minutes or two hours or two days to figure out exactly what something is.”
