Insect Collections Methodology

Equipment

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  An insect preparation setup on display at Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin
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  Insect collecting equipment. Curved insect forceps, fine forceps,pins, minuten,cards, plastazote, glue brush.
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  Insect pins.
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  Insect pins
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  Setting a beetle
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  Setting a bush cricket
• video of setting procedure- Lepidoptera Also see Deyrolle Magazine archive copy at the Wayback Machine
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  lens
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  Etikettentreppe

Mounted Insects

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  small beetle mounted
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  Specimens of Atta cephalotes Various worker castes card mounted on the left. Unwinged and winged females direct pinned on the right.
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  "Micromoth specimens on minuten pins set with the wings spread and staged on plastazote. Note the long delicate antennae.
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  A pinned moth imago (not set) and on the left a pupa of the same species part emergent from a leaf mine (dried and pinned).
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  Pinned pupa and cocoon of Phthorimaea operculella
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  A large beetle direct-pinned. Note the pin is vertical and transfixes the right elytron.
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  Lateral pinning. Museum Koenig.
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  A tiny wasp glued to a card point transfixed by a standard continental insect pin (out of focus bottom centre)
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  A small empid glued to a card point by the right wing
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  Sciapus nervosus glued to a card point
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  A carded beetle.
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  Carded specimen.Showing spacing.
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  Carded beetles
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  Card "point" mounting
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  Staged specimen.Showing spacing and determination label.
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  Lateral direct pinning.The wing and elytron on the left side “open” to show the venation.
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  Set specimen of Dolycoris baccarum. Wings left side opened right forewing opened, right hind wing folded.
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  Insect parts
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  Insect galls, Polistes nest and insects in amber
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  Mounted larval exoskeleton of Hyles euphorbiae.
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  Direct pinned Cassidini with hand-written labels
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  Printed Data labels. Removed from a pin. Note the holes.Labels are rarely removed and replaced in the original order on the pin.
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  Encarsia accenta holotype slide.

Terms

• Point.A point is a triangular piece of white card cut with a point punch. A pin is inserted through the broad base of the triangle and the tip is bent with forceps at a right angle. A tiny amount of glue is placed on this bent tip and this is then applied to the right side of the insects thorax. A correctly pointed specimen has the body horizontal when the pin is vertical, with the long axis of the insect at right angles to the point.

A moth on a minuten staged on an entomological pin

• Entomological pins. Continental pins, so called because they are used internationally by museums and collectors are made of stainless or black enamelled steel. They are (except 7) a standard length (40mm) and differ in thickness only. The sizes are 000, 00, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. 000 are the thinnest size 7 is a very strong pin and longer (52mm) It is for very large beetles.The length allows for several data labels. The pins have round nylon heads or solid metal heads.

• Minuten.Short(12mm long) insect pins without heads, used for double mounting (staging) very small insects.

• Staging.Specimens pinned on their sides with minuten (lateral pinning) or dorsum upright (direct pinning) are pinned into a stage. A stage is a thin strip of high density foam (plastazote) supported in a horizontal position by a size 3 entomological pin. The stage is positioned half way up the vertical stage-pin, to allow room underneath for labels and to allow handling without damage.Staging side-pinned (at an angle so as different features are damaged on the two sides of the thorax) protects small specimens and displays most features. The stage-pin is easy to manipulate when moving the specimen and the stage absorbs vibrations.

Advice[1] archive copy at the Wayback Machine More advice [2].

Storage

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  Glass-topped wooden “insect trays” in a steel unit at La Specola Zoological Museum in Florence.
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  Units in Brussels
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  Insects systematically arranged in an “insect tray” at La Specola
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  Part of a beetle collection
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  Museums use a system of air-tight, steel cabinets and the wooden, glass-topped drawers shown here. Standard-sized, card boxes called unit-trays fit in the drawers. The unit-trays are lined with plastazote foam.
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  Unit trays
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  Unit tray.Labelling
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  Store box
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  A beetle collection
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  National Museum of Natural History, insect collection, Washington D.C., USA
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  Insect collections have to be kept pest-free

Microscopy

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  Microscopy Laboratory

Data entry

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  Data entry on a laptop computer