Insect Collection

[mcmcnair]

I'm taking the General Entomology class at my school and we have to have a bug collection and it's worth about 30% of our final grade. The requirements are to have a minimum of 10 orders, 35 families, and 45 ecological categories. Ecological categories are things like Leaf Chewing, Plant Sucking, Vertebrate Parasite, Wood dwelling, cryptic coloration, stem borers, soil burrower, chemical defense, mimics, gall forming, agricultural pests, etc. As of now I have 18 different orders, 53 families and the only ecological categories I'm missing is a Seed feeding insect and a second Insect Parasite. Anyway, here's my collection for those of you that enjoy insects.
My collection box

Lepidoptera

Orthoptera

Diptera

Blattodea and Coleoptera

Hymenoptera

Hemiptera

Mantodea

Odonata

Those are the only insects I have pinned the rest are in vials and are pretty hard to photograph without some sort of microscope. Thanks for looking!

 

[divaskid]

Nice! The students in my class today were catching bugs on our ag farm field trip for their entomology class. They seemed to catch a nice big selection. I'd love to take this class, but will have to wait until another semseter.

 

[That One Guy]

Why do they have to die?

 

[Lil Stinkpot]

Nice set! If you want more, they'd need to be relaxed and mounted, let me know, and I can catch you some interesting CA buggies. I used to have a very nice collection. It got lost in two successive moves.

An idea: Small samples can be attached to the paper tag, and the tag pinned through.

 

[mcmcnair]

@Divaskid, it is a lot of work but it is also a lot of fun
@TOG, most of them I didn't mind killing but I felt kind of bad for the butteflies, dragonfly, and the mantid
@lil, I have some pointed like that check out the photo of the order Diptera

 

[Lil Stinkpot]

Ahhh, there they are. I didn't see them at first. I just saw the ladybug and went steaming on ahead.

 

[Nepenthesis]

I want to collect tropical butterflies so bad but they only sell the mounted ones!

Very nice collection! I wish you luck in finding your seed-feeders and another parasite! Just an idea, but maybe if you go on a hike through some tall weeds looking for the seed feeder and then go home and look on your head you could find some ticks... That would kill two insects with one pin! (Har har)

 

[mcmcnair]

well I need an insect parasite not a vertebrate parasite, but i have a good idea of where to look for my seed feeder

 

[Nepenthesis]

well I need an insect parasite not a vertebrate parasite, but i have a good idea of where to look for my seed feeder

Oooh, worms! Like tape worms or ring worms, or maybe a leach or something. Can you do aqua insects?

 

[swords]

Cool stuff! I used to do insect spreading, exotic butterflies, mantids, stick & leaf insects, giant beetles, etc. I sold a lot but gave my dad a lot of the stuff I really liked but didn't have room for. When he died I was cleaning out his place and thought "I'm gonna bring all my old insects home" but there was nothing left in the frames except a few antennae and wing pieces, something got into the riker mounts and ate the dried exoskeletons and stuff. I found little pupae husks in the cotton where the insects used to be!

A leech is a parasite, if you could get one at the bait shop and preserve it in mineral spirits or alcohol.

 

[corky]

what about a parasitic wasp,don't they lay eggs in insects,you maybe use an adult wasp as the larvae would be hard to find and preserve,just a thought

 

[mcmcnair]

i've got one Braconid wasp, which is parasitic but vespid wasps typically are not parasitic and those are the only other kind of wasps I have. And it is too cold here now to collect anymore insects unfortunately.