Do you freeze bugs?
Jul 24, 2012 15:19:04 #
lachmap wrote:
42 (The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything)I tell you all now: the cockroaches will inherit the Earth. Of course if you happen to read "Venus on a half shell" by Kilgore Trout then you will understand everything. Believe me, it is a fantastic read, but then I am crazy!!!
Jul 24, 2012 16:49:37 #
lachmap
Loc: Sydney Australia
But the question is? "What do you get when..........." LOL But we do digress from the topic don't we.
Jul 24, 2012 16:52:59 #
Stevieboy wrote:
Just curious. Do you think some people either capture insects alive and put them in the freezer for a while ( so the insects can be staged and not move too much) or buy insect specimens somewhere ( dead or alive) to photogaph?
yes, They may even bait them ,drug them, smoke them,poisen them.
Jul 24, 2012 20:47:47 #
william48 wrote:
yes, They may even bait them ,drug them, smoke them,poisen them.
Stevieboy wrote:
Just curious. Do you think some people either capture insects alive and put them in the freezer for a while ( so the insects can be staged and not move too much) or buy insect specimens somewhere ( dead or alive) to photogaph?
yes, They may even bait them ,drug them, smoke them,poisen them.
I guess I'm too much of a purest. I prefer to find insects in their natural settings, chill the fast ones just enough to slow them down so I can get set up with my macro & strobes and get a decent photograph. Then watch them escape as their temperature rises.
Jul 24, 2012 23:08:27 #
Nikonian72 wrote:
patsibley wrote:
TMI!I had to do an insect collection when I was in high school and I can tell you that I put a cockroach in a killing jar (with a wad of alcohol soaked cotton) and in the freezer for 3 days to kill it. Then I "pinned it" (put a pin thru his thorax and stuck it in my collection box , and within a couple of hours, he was trying to crawl off his pin!
Certainly grossed me out!
Jul 24, 2012 23:24:22 #
Festina Lente wrote:
Sometimes I place the same insects back into the freezer two or three times, until I get the photos I want. Then I just let them "buzz off"!I guess I'm too much of a purest. I prefer to find insects in their natural settings, chill the fast ones just enough to slow them down so I can get set up with my macro & strobes and get a decent photograph. Then watch them escape as their temperature rises.
Jul 25, 2012 00:51:16 #
Nikonian72 wrote:
But that means they are in your home, and adjacent to your food. Festina Lente wrote:
Sometimes I place the same insects back into the freezer two or three times, until I get the photos I want. Then I just let them "buzz off"!I guess I'm too much of a purest. I prefer to find insects in their natural settings, chill the fast ones just enough to slow them down so I can get set up with my macro & strobes and get a decent photograph. Then watch them escape as their temperature rises.
(Considering the temperatures in the Midwest remain in the triple digits for the fifth week in a row, maybe that's not a bad approach at all.)
Jul 25, 2012 01:26:23 #
Festina Lente wrote:
I photograph in my garden.But that means they are in your home, and adjacent to your food.
Jul 29, 2012 13:54:28 #
In answer to the question, very rarely -- there are so many bugs out there, there is usually no need. Occasionally, that special one you don't want to get away can be cooled down.
A comment on muscles, though. Insects don't use hydraulics for general movement. They are full of muscles for leg movement and flight and breathing and evacuation. Spiders, though, use hydraulics for extension of the legs. That's why dead or dying spiders curl up -- they loose blood pressure and can't extend the legs. Alive and well, they use muscles to contract the legs and move them fore and back and up and down. For both, blood pressure is really important for shedding skins and expanding wings for bugs.
Funny story; in the Sierra on a trip one of my students did a project on wolf spiders, and cooled them in the snow. She tried everything she could think of. Didn't work. She finally had to follow them and wait or them to tire -- luckily, they do fairly quickly. These spiders are adapted to remain active on snowbanks where they hunt for imobilized prey! She was really bummed.
A comment on muscles, though. Insects don't use hydraulics for general movement. They are full of muscles for leg movement and flight and breathing and evacuation. Spiders, though, use hydraulics for extension of the legs. That's why dead or dying spiders curl up -- they loose blood pressure and can't extend the legs. Alive and well, they use muscles to contract the legs and move them fore and back and up and down. For both, blood pressure is really important for shedding skins and expanding wings for bugs.
Funny story; in the Sierra on a trip one of my students did a project on wolf spiders, and cooled them in the snow. She tried everything she could think of. Didn't work. She finally had to follow them and wait or them to tire -- luckily, they do fairly quickly. These spiders are adapted to remain active on snowbanks where they hunt for imobilized prey! She was really bummed.
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