A new article by Knight Center director Eric Freedman profiles four scientists – Finders, he calls them – who have discovered or, in one case, rediscovered, plant and animal species.
Last year, Grant Fessler discovered a population of pink lady’s slippers in Illinois. The flower hadn’t been reported in the state since 1999. Photo by Grant Fessler.
His article in the summer issue of the environmental magazine Earth Island Journal explores the experiences of Lohit Garikipati of the American Museum of Natural History’s Richard Gilder Graduate School who discovered the Sonoran tiger mantis in Arizona, Natalia Garcia of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology who identified two new bird species in Brazil, Rob Gandola of the Herpetological Society of Ireland who discovered the Mahamavo skink in Madagascar and Grant Fessler of the Chicago Botanic Garden who rediscovered the pink lady’s slipper in Illinois.
Rob Gandola (with a helmeted iguana) helped discover a new species of skink in Madagascar in 2011. Last year, he found a species of newt in Ireland that hadn’t yet been recorded there. Photo courtesy of Rob Gandola.
Freedman’s interest in Finders was spurred by his late great-uncle, Aaron Nadler, who was a citizen-scientist decades before that term was coined. He drew a comfortable income in the financial world but his true love was collecting insects, whether overseas or on his in Brooklyn, New York, where he lived most of his life.
The Knight Center’s regional environmental news service, Great Lakes Echo, has received a 2025 Print Environmental Journalism Award from the Sierra Club’s Michigan chapter.
