Curious about carnivorous butterflies? Wondering about which ants are their favorite snack? The biology department has a lecture for you. Entomologist and butterfly expert Naomi E. Pierce, Hessel Professor of Biology in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University and curator of lepidoptera at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, will deliver the third annual Isabelle Sprague Lecture at Mount Holyoke Tuesday, December 5, at 4:30 pm, in Hooker Auditorium. Refreshments will be served in Clapp 126 at 4 pm. Pierce’s talk is titled “Life History Evolution in the Lycaenidae: Cradle-Robbing, Meat-Eating, Ant-Loving Butterflies.” The lecture is being presented by MHC’s Department of Biological Sciences as part of its fall seminar series.

Entomologist and butterfly expert Naomi E. Pierce

At Harvard, Pierce teaches undergraduate courses in animal behavior and entomology and graduate seminars on the macroevolution of interactions and behavioral ecology. Her research has focused on everything from the visual systems of butterflies and honeybees, to the development of wing patterns in butterflies, to the evolution of silks produced by spiders and other insects. Her specialty is evolutionary and ecological studies of butterflies. She has been a senior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows since1996; was a science scholar at The Bunting Institute, Radcliffe College (1989–90); a visiting fellow, at Magdalen College, Oxford University (1988–93); a MacArthur fellow (1987–88); a visiting research fellow, University of New England, Australia (1984–85); a NATO postdoctoral fellow in the Science Department of Zoology, Oxford University (1983–84); and a Fulbright postdoctoral research fellow, Griffith University, Queensland, Australia.

The Isabelle Baird Sprague Lecture was established in 1998 in honor of Isabelle Baird Sprague ’37. Sprague earned undergraduate and graduate degrees from MHC and went on to receive a PhD from the University of Kansas. She taught at MHC between 1945 and 1978, retiring as the David B. Truman Professor of Biological Sciences.