The following is an excerpt from the full article, appearing in Madison Magazine on April 2, 2025.

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Bug out: Join us in celebrating Wisconsin’s insects

Learn to appreciate insects, with guidance from local artist Jennifer Angus, entomologist P.J. Liesch, bumblebee expert Judy Cardin and more.

[…] For the past 10 years, entomologist P.J. Liesch — better known as Wisconsin Bug Guy — has served as director of the UW–Madison Department of Entomology’s Insect Diagnostic Lab. He’s the guy researchers, business owners, landscapers and citizens call or email when they find a bug they can’t identify, and he fields 2,500 such requests each year. Ninety-five percent of them come from Wisconsinites, but Liesch has also identified insects in all 50 U.S. states and close to 50 other countries. In his lab, where coffee mugs and glass beakers hang on the same rack, the walls are papered with newspaper clippings he’s quoted in (like The New York Times’ piece on murder hornets), hand-drawn thank-you pictures from area children and insect-inspired posters that say things like “Keep Calm and Carrion.” Outnumbering this ephemera are the insect specimens themselves — most dead, but some living. Right now there’s a tiny, live scorpion keeping Liesch company beneath a rock in a little plastic case on his shelf. […]

Read the full article from Madison Magazine

This article was posted in Features and tagged PJ Liesch.