You never know what you’re going to find inside a gob of spit in a meadow. If you’re lucky, it might be a young spittlebug. The “spit,” which is left over from feeding on plant sap, protects these harmless insects from predators and parasitic wasps, as Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Natural Sciences Emeritus Nathaniel T. Wheelwright explains.

If you want to make your own natural history observations, The Naturalist’s Notebook by Nathaniel T. Wheelwright and Bernd Heinrich (Storey Publishing, 2017) provides guidance and a systematic format, with 100 percent of royalties going to conservation and environmental education.

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