These enigmatic arthropods have been mistaken for wingless bees, giant ants, roaches, generic "bugs" with poisonous bites and a host of other things, but in reality they are harmless Jerusalem crickets. These shiny, spiny insects belong to the same scientific order—called Orthoptera—as field crickets, grasshoppers, locusts and katydids. And David Weissman of Los Gatos is the world expert on them.

An unassuming man with a graying beard who lives with his family in the quiet, wooded hills above east Los Gatos, Weissman is actually an anesthesiologist by vocation, who is contracted by local hospitals as a member of Los Gatos-based Group Anesthesia Services, or GAS—an acronym that is not altogether accidental.

Despite his work in the medical field, not to mention his doctorate degree in the same, Weissman is also active in his longtime avocation—that of entomology. It may seem like an incongruous pairing, but for Weissman, it's like second nature.

"As an anesthesiologist, you make enough money to support yourself, but you still have time to do other things," says Weissman, whose first Ph.D.—earned at Stanford University—was in population biology and ecology. Because he had difficulty finding jobs relating to his academic studies, he turned around and went to medical school. Being an anesthesiologist appealed to him, he says, because "you have to be good with your hands and your mind."

Those same skills are also critical in his entomological pursuits, which have had him digging in the ground and handling insects for some 20 years. "Once I got into med school, I thought I wouldn't have any time for my field work, but I did," he recalls with a relieved smile.

One of his early projects took him down to Baja California, where scientists were studying how native populations of orthopterans (insects of the order Orthoptera) had been affected by the construction of a highway.

"Southern California had a lot of biodiversity, but because of development, we're losing some of these species," says Weissman, who would later learn that a particular orthopteran, the Jerusalem cricket, was one of the most under-classified insects in the United States.

For example, he says, there are approximately 50 species of "JC"—as he calls the cricket—living in California, but at the time he began studying them, only about seven had been classified and named. Part of the reason, he suspects, is because these crickets are nocturnal and often lie buried in the soil.

"People would die to name things like that," he says, shaking his head at how such an interesting insect could fall through the cracks of the system. "There are so many insect groups, but there's not always enough entomologists to study them," he adds, explaining that since he couldn't find anyone devoted to studying Jerusalem crickets, he took on the task himself.

"The nice thing is, I'm not at a university; I don't have to publish or perish. I can take 20 years to work on a project. The other good thing is that there's no one else who really studies Jerusalem crickets, which makes me the world expert on them," he says with a grin.

The cricket's unusual name, however, is one of the few things that still eludes him. He says he's spent years trying to find a definitive answer, but is still stuck with several theories from several different scientists and sources.

"They're only found in the Western United States and Central America—nowhere near Jerusalem!" he says, chuckling. One theory he finds amusing lies in an obscure dictionary definition he once saw that defined "Jerusalem!" as an exclamation people might say if they were shocked or surprised about something.

One of the most fascinating attributes about Jerusalem crickets, Weissman says, is that they attract mates not by singing, since they have no wings, but by rapidly drumming their abdomens on the ground. He discovered this more than two decades ago, quite by accident, when he had two crickets of the same species—or so he thought—next to each other, and each began drumming at a completely different rate.

"The classical method of taxonomy is to collect specimens in the field, kill them, bring them back to the lab, stroke your beard and go 'hmmm,' " explains Weissman, who likens the drumming discovery to a scientific epiphany. "By keeping the crickets alive, raising them and recording their drumming patterns, I can tell if they're of the same or different species."

"That's how the different Jerusalem cricket species stay within their own species," he adds. "They don't want to hybridize among species because, in general, that's detrimental to the gene pool. Some species even have different numbers of chromosomes."

Raising the JCs in his home lab has also given him a voyeur's-eye perspective on their mating behavior, which he describes as gymnastic feats unlike those of any other insect. JCs are also the only insect to engage in what entomologists call "postcoital cannibalism." Female praying mantises and black widow spiders eat the males either before or during the mating.

Photograph by George Sakkestad Displaying a collection of insects is entomologist David Weissman of Los Gatos.

Just as he's documented several decades' worth of information on the Jerusalem cricket, Weissman knows there are other dedicated people like himself who are documenting other members of the animal kingdom—from crickets to giant blue whales. Every species has a right to live and is important to natural biodiversity, he says, which is why it bothers him when people look at detailed research such as his and ask: "Who cares?"

This leads him back to the topic of biodiversity throughout the world and mankind's many threats to it, which he says is a constant concern of his.

"The higher the biodiversity of an area, the more stable that environmental or ecosystem is. This is an accepted fact, not just a guess," he says. Deserts, for example, have a low level of biodiversity, so they take a long time to recover from environmental insults—especially damage or pollution caused by humans. Rainforests, conversely, are loaded with biodiversity and take a shorter time to recover from similar insults.

"And then there's the pure aesthetics of biodiversity; we have an obligation to leave the world in at least the same state as we found it, or preferably a better state," he says.

Perhaps humans could learn a thing or two from the humble Jerusalem cricket.

"They've evolved and found their niche," Weissman says, "and they're just trying to live their lives."