“This book is beautiful, I wish I was in it,” Stephen Colbert said on 7 February 2008 about Mark’s Face to Face with Frogs, released by the book division of National Geographic Society in February of 2008 in conjunction with a major exhibit of Mark’s images of frogs at the National Geographic Museum in D.C. 

Currently Mark is finishing a book for Unversity of California Press that will explore science, nature, photography and other fields using ants, in an effort that has taken him to five continents.

Mark is a winner of the Bowdoin Medal, Harvard's most prestigious prize for writing, awarded annually since 1745.

MARK IS A 2008 POYNTER JOURNALISM FELLOW:

Previously awarded by Yale to such luminaries as Arianna Huffington, Charlie Rose, Al Franken, Bob Woodward, David Brooks, Judy Woodruff, Paul Steiger.

REVIEWS OF THE BOOK, THE HIGH FRONTIER:

The Boston Globe
"Mark W. Moffett, a Harvard entomologist who is also a journalist and reporter, presents his personal vision of tropical rainforest canopy biology... a stunning mix of adventure, nature photography and hard scientific inquiry that ranks with the best work of Jacques Cousteau."

Nature
"Scientists have only just begun to explore the biology of the tropical rainforest canopy. In The High Frontier, Mark W. Moffett provides an elegantly written account of the ecology of this aerial continent. The book is packed full with his stunning -- and often unusual -- photographs of canopy architecture, animals, and plants."

New York Times
“Mark W. Moffett’s The High Frontier is a kind of cross between an adventure story (there's a certain amount of derring-do in scaling a 200-foot tree in the Costa Rican cloud forest) and poetic biology: "The canopy is to tropical biologists what the sea once was to marine explorers... The water of the rain forest reef is the balmy air itself, through which minute organisms drift like plankton while larger ones fly and leap from one part of the tree scaffolding to another.”

Library Journal
“A tree-climber when young, Moffett has combined his early agility with his doctoral rain forest research to write a fascinating account of the fauna of the rain forest canopy. It has been only in the last twenty years that biologists have been able, through a variety of techniques, to get up into the canopy, often 100 to 200 feet above the forest floor, and study the teeming animal life there. Moffett visited most of the researchers now active in this very special field.  He mixes the science in an interesting way, offering glimpses into the life and research methods of these biological specialists. Illustrated with spectacular photographs taken by the author and written in a very readable style, [The High Frontier] will fascinate both to the biologist and the general reader.”

Edward O. Wilson
“This book is a tour de force of scientific journalism as well as the visual and literary expression of an experienced and deeply caring naturalist.”

Amy Tan (in her novel, Saving Fish From Drowning)
“Mark Moffett’s The High Frontier gave me a bird’s-eye view of the ecosystem with vivid and visceral pleasure.”

New Scientist
“A beautiful book.”

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE ARTICLES SINCE 1999:

August 2007:  New Discoveries from the World of the Ant

May 2007: Bulldog Ants: The Lone Huntress

November 2006: Mushrooms: A Photojournal essay

August 2006: Army Ants: Inside the Ranks

January 2006: The Mantid: Armed and Dangerous

July 2004: Wind Scorpions
                 Camel Spiders: Behind an E-Mail Sensation From Iraq


March 2004: The Rainforest in Rio’s Backyard
                     Frog Stories from the Atlantic Coastal Forest

April 2002: China’s Hengduan Mountains (written by Virginia Morell)

May 2001: Ants and Plants: Tree Fortresses

May 2000: Ants and Plants: Friends and Foes

February 1999: Ants and Plants: A Profitable Partnership

A FEW OTHER FAVORITE ARTICLES:

An Outside Magazine article about Mark's friend Dr. Joe Slowinski, the brilliant cobra expert who died in front of Mark’s eyes at a remote town in Burma on 11 September 2001.   His account has been reprinted several times, including in the books Back Road to Crazy and Adrenaline 2002.

Mark's favorite article for Smithsonian Magazine concerns the first-ever scientific expedition to Iran (currently available online without images).

An Article in National Wildlife Magazine (National Wildlife Federation) describes one of Mark’s expeditions into the tepui region of Venezuela with explorer Charles Brewer-Carias.

CHILDREN’S WRITING:

Mark frequently publishes in Ranger Rick, the wonderful children’s magazine of the National Wildlife Federation.  Look out for the upcoming "Ant Plant" story in Ranger Rick, and click here for a preview of the story "Doctor Bugs" in the children's magazine, National Geographic Explorer.

Go to Amazon to buy Mark’s 2008 book, Face to Face with Frogs (link at right).