Lifelong Nature and Science nerd - I have loved bugs since childhood, and am horrified by visitors to tropical countries who swear never to return because of the creepy-crawlies! I have degrees in Chemistry and Plant Sciences but spent most of my career in Botanical Horticulture including nine years at Kew, where I worked with Alpine plants. Having the spare time to study and think about Science and Nature made up for the low pay - low even at Kew. Now retired and continuing my studies, which I shall do till I drop or my brain packs up. Five years ago I developed a passion for felines after a lost cat cured me of a bout of the blues, which is how I fetched up at the Cheetah Conservation Fund in Namibia last February. In my spare time there I photographed plants and insects, many of the latter by sitting up late under lights. Loved it and hope to go back. Frequently raise locally-found caterpillars at home and release the resulting adults back to the wild; used to ID caterpillars on a long-gone site called 'What's This Caterpillar?' till I got too many offensive emails from people whose caterpillars I had failed to identify from such descriptions as 'green and an inch long'.