Kurtis Himmler measuring flowers for a bee pollination study at the Negri-Nepote Native Grassland Preserve. Photo by Joseph Zientek.
This Red-Spotted Purple (Limenitis arthemis), a kind of butterfly, was photographed by Kurtis in Middlesex County, and uploaded by him to the iNaturalist website as one of many millions of species observations from people worldwide. Photo by Kurtis Himmler.
Undergraduate Kurtis Himmler just got his first research paper published, an article in BioScience on the Personal Bioblitz project. Kurtis was part of the leadership team in this project, and he personally verified the names of 792 species of invertebrates (and a lot of birds) observed by 80 participants during the 75-day worldwide Bioblitz.
Kurtis is a specialist on invertebrates and birds, and during the Bioblitz he uploaded no less than 415 unique species to our iNaturalist project (his observations are here). Apart from discovering many species never before found on our campus, he has done independent research in the research laboratories of Rachael Winfree (where he mounted and labeled more than 4000 bee specimens) and Steven Handel, and he is currently working on his George H. Cook Honors Thesis.