Jerry Payne

As a teenager growing up in the mountains of rural northern virginia, Jerry Payne wondered "Animals are dying all the time. Where do they all go?" This question led to Jerry's remarkable study on insect succession in carrion, which became a landmark study in forensic entomology. Now retired, Dr. Payne and his wife Rose excel at the taxonomy of birds, butterflies, and plants. They often bird and butterfly watch with the Trappist monk Father Francis Michael Stiteler, on the grounds of his monastery near Conyers, Georgia.

Footage shot by Jerry Payne for the first detailed study of arthropod succesion in animal decomposition and the first to use a pig as the model.