uofmwoodie Loc: Bonita Springs, Fl

Nice ! Question if you don't mind. Do you buy your preserved insects, if so where. or if you do it yourself is it hard to do. Living in Fl. most of the area is sprayed so hard to find insects here. Thanks for any help;

Bob Woodbury

MERRY CHRISTMAS

JeffDavidson Loc: Originally Detroit Now Los Angeles

Great detail.

sippyjug104 Loc: Missouri

Thanks, Fotoartist. It's nice to know that others enjoy seeing them.

sippyjug104 Loc: Missouri

Bob, thanks for viewing and for asking. I collect insects around the home and on walks through woods and fields. I always keep empty pill bottles handy for I never know when one presents itself. Early morning is most productive for they are less active then. I don't find anything exotic, mostly insects that are considered to be pests.

I find many of my specimens under fallen limbs and old rotting logs. Centipedes and beetles of all sorts make their living under them chewing and digesting the wood. Predator insects, like centipedes, hunt there. Spiders are everywhere and I look for the webs in the tree limbs where they catch flying insects.

I also get a lot of my specimens outside my door that I catch on cheap sticky fly strips. I hang it on the porch light and turn it on at night. Moths and other night flyers...and yes, flies too, collect on them by the handsfull.

Ground beetles, roach family members, crickets, etc. can be found at night in the yard with a flashlight. In the summer I hang an old white bed sheet on the fence and shine a drop-light on it to collect night fliers which include many species of scarab beetles, moths and leaf-hoppers.

I use a "pit trap" in the yard along the fence which is a plastic cottage cheese container that I put a bit of trimmings of fruit into it and I dig a hole so that I can place the container into it with its lip slightly below the top of the soil. Place a bit of cardboard or leaves over it and the ground dwelling insects will find it and fall into it. Because the plastic container is slick they can't get out. Check it each day and if it's rainy, put a few holes in the bottom.

I spray flying insects like wasps and hornets with a heavy mix of liquid dish soap and water. I use a pump spray bottle (old Windex bottle) and the thick soap water kills them within seconds. The dish soap clogs the breathing holes along the sides of their bodies. It truly works great and it is environmentally friendly and non-poisonous to humans and pets.

According to entomologists’ estimates, there are over 10 quintillion insects (10,000,000,000,000,000,000) at any given time on earth. The insects can be either crawling, hopping or flying. Other billions are either asleep or in various stages of metamorphosis. The figure makes insects the largest biomass among terrestrial animals. In other words...they are everywhere!

I dispatch my insects by placing them in a jar with cotton balls saturated with M.E.K. solvent substitute. Fingernail polish remover with acetone or acetone from the hardware store works just as well. I preserve my non-fuzzy non-hairy insects in empty pill bottles with denatured alcohol. The fuzzy and hairy ones along with moths, spiders and butterflies are stored in the freezer in either a shoe box with a piece of foam in the bottom that I can stick the pin into or plastic pill bottles.

sippyjug104 Loc: Missouri

Thanks, Jeff. I appreciate the feedback.