Hendrik Poinar Quotes

I want to know diverse facts about such things as galaxies or molecules or proteins or insect species. I have an impulse to want to know the little details, which are usually of no significance to non-specialists. I own a dissection microscope, and if there is an insect in the house, I sometimes catch it and look at it under the microscope.

Some people collect butterflies - I love beetles.

I remember being fascinated by ants and wasps and other bugs when I was a kid. I'd set out a Coke can and stand back 20 feet and use my telescope to watch wasps land on it.

The fossil record is incredible when it preserves things, but it's not a complete record.

I spent my childhood in northern New York State, and like many kids, bugs and other critters fascinated me.

Pretty! in amber to observe the forms Of hairs, of straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms! The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare, But wonder how the devil they got there.

Of what use are the great number of petrifactions, of different species, shape and form which are dug up by naturalists? Perhaps the collection of such specimens is sheer vanity and inquisitiveness. I do not presume to say; but we find in our mountains the rarest animals, shells, mussels, and corals embalmed in stone, as it were, living specimens of which are now being sought in vain throughout Europe. These stones alone whisper in the midst of general silence.

There's this shop in New York I go to; it has bones and fossils and insects that are like works of art. I have a few on my wall.

I immediately loved working with flies. They fascinated me and followed me around in my dreams.

No naturalist has devoted more painstaking attention to the structure of the barnacles than Mr. Darwin.

I believe that natural history has lost much by the vague general treatment that is so common.

Most people looking for dinosaurs are looking for beautiful skeletons.

A fossil is so powerful. It's moving. This is my ancestor. The naturalist is moved by the fossil... not the cross.

I am interested in 18th century natural philosophy, science, particularly botany, the study of hybridity in plants and animals, which, of course, then allows me to consider the hybridity of language.

I certainly wasn't the kind of kid that grew up collecting bugs and spiders.

I can't think of any other region in the world which is such a vast source of fossils.

For fossils to thrive, certain favorable circumstances are required. First of all, of course, remnants of life have to be there. These then need to be washed over with water as soon as possible, so that the bones are covered with a layer of sediment.

I started out wanting to be a naturalist. My obsession in my youth was with bird-watching. I collected things, I spent a lot of time outdoors. I only vaguely realized that science was a little more than natural history, but by then I was hooked.

I attended elementary school and high school in Mexico City. I was already fascinated by science before entering high school; I still remember my excitement when I first glanced at paramecia and amoebae through a rather primitive toy microscope.

The former conviction that these two kingdoms were wholly different in structure, in function, and in kind of life, was not seriously disturbed by the difficulties which the naturalist encountered when he undertook to define them.

Of all bugs, growing up I just loved the pill bugs. They roll up, you play with them, you wait for them to open up, and then when you touch them they roll up again. I just love that.

As a kid, I knew all of the dinosaurs. It's one of those tragedies that I've forgotten what dinosaurs are cool.

In the future, I'd like to see paleontology as a whole get a lot more quantitative.

One of the things that I first remember wanting to be was a 'geolisty' - that was the best I could say when I was a kid. That was right after I stopped wanting to be a fireman or a truck driver. Because my dad is a paleontologist who worked with the Smithsonian, I got to see the bones up close and the exhibits behind the scenes there.

One thing I did was grow up as an ardent naturalist. I never grew out of my bug period.