troidescriton
New Aurelian
Hobbyist here! Love butterflies
Posts: 18
Country: United Kingdom
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Post by troidescriton on Jul 15, 2015 20:30:51 GMT
New here In my experience, I only started this year, but my love for butterflies goes all the way from when I was a lil kid, fascinated by those beautiful creatures. The first time I came into contact with entomology was when I was 8 years old and my dad bought me a deepbox frame with butterflies in it. I was taken by it! I bought some more but they kept disappearing. I came back into this hobby when my brother's girlfriend bought me a framed Morpo Didius Didius for Christmas (amongst other things). Since then, I bought a few frames and then one day, me and her were walking outside and I found a freshly dead Inachis io(Peacock butterfly) on the floor. It was the first butterfly I spread, and let me tell you this, I did a horrible job! lol And then soon after, I found out that I can buy dried specimens off of eBay. Bought many specimens. Made one frame with twelve specimens, one with 3 and two solo frames that I am selling on eBay. I have a few specimens I am still waiting to frame and they include Hypolimnas Bolina Bolina (Bloina bolina is the smaller one with the black female) (Male x2 female x1. It is funny that I used to chase this butterfly all my life, back in Oman and now I have them) Troides Criton (PAIR), Ornithopetra Primaus AURANA (Pair), Papilio Ulysses (male x3) and 2 butterflies and I forgot the names of those two. lol Absolutely love this hobby! Too bad many people now think I am psychotic and weird
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Post by wollastoni on Jul 15, 2015 20:35:14 GMT
Welcome here Troidescriton ! Don't worry, here we prefer to be weird than ignorant !
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troidescriton
New Aurelian
Hobbyist here! Love butterflies
Posts: 18
Country: United Kingdom
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Post by troidescriton on Jul 15, 2015 20:56:05 GMT
Welcome here Troidescriton ! Don't worry, here we prefer to be weird than ignorant ! Thank you! Yup, I agree!
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francisento
New Aurelian
Posts: 26
Country: Switzerland
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Post by francisento on Jul 16, 2015 0:23:18 GMT
As a boy I used to spend the holidays in the Engadine (Switzerland), a beautiful valley located near the border to Italy. One of our favorite day trips was visiting the "Val Bregaglia" and walking from the historic mountain village of Soglio down to Castasegna. On the ancient path built by romans my father regularly found large grasshoppers, either Wart-Biters (Decticus verrucivorus) or the rarer Anacridium aegyptium, both quite impressive grasshoppers. I was deeply fascinated seeing the hoppers "sail" across the sunny slopes and observing them on my fathers hand if he caught one. During my last year in primary school my teacher invited a well known entomologist to hold a lecture. He was a gentle, white bearded man named Clemens Rimoldi and brought with him a nice display of drawers full of fascinating insects. Each of us children received a little cardboard box with a spread silk moth in it. Following Mr Rimoldi's explications and seeing all those beautiful butterflies and beetles definitely "hooked" me up on Entomology. Soon after Mr Rimoldi's visit to school I knocked at his door with a friend. He warmly welcomed us and I will never forget following him down into his cellar with several rooms containing cupboards full of insect drawers from the floor to the ceiling. He had specialised in displaying dried insects showing their life cycle or specimens with their prey etc. - for example he had many dried caterpillars mounted on dried leafs, wasps with caterpillar-prey and cocoons with butterflies spread next to them. With every visit he showed me more of his collection and sold to me a few insects, it is there I started to collect insects and spent every penny of my pocket money. He also determined dead insects I had found outside, once I remember I brought him a huge dead mole cricket and he could show me a drawer showing series of different nymphs to adult species of mole cricket. The most impressive were his drawers full of Hercules Beetles. After his death his collection went to the Zurich National History Museum and I got to know during his lifetime he exposed his collection in over 150 european places known as "The beauty and fascination in the World of Insects". Thanks to him and my parents encouraging me to keep my collection in a safe place I started to be and stay an insect collector.
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Post by trehopr1 on Jul 16, 2015 1:02:35 GMT
Francisento, I very much enjoyed the read about your great beginnings in this fascinating science of ours. And your story lends a certain tribute to a kindly old entomologist, mentor, and drear friend who was able to pass along the passion he had fostered for a lifetime.
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mooks
New Aurelian
Posts: 31
Country: U.K.
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Post by mooks on Mar 29, 2016 18:21:54 GMT
Can remember it well 1976 when l was in last year in school did a science project on insects. Had some UK privet Hawks wow what a size l thought. Then my friend showed me a adult A.pernyi jeez then on l was hooked. Butts moths beetles etc all interest me . My school friend found a job as a nature artist with the World wildlife fund he was brilliant haven't seen him since the early 80s..
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Post by neominois on Jun 23, 2016 17:26:06 GMT
Unlike most Entomologists, I became hooked a little later in life than most. I was a senior in college and was preparing to graduate with a teaching license in Biology. I thought it might be cool to collect some insects for a display case in my future classroom. For my birthday, my Mom gave me a small net with a few jars. I went out into the backyard and caught my first butterfly, of course, a Monarch. That was it, I was hooked, more like obsessed... I began searching everywhere for butterflies. It was all so new, and I was so naive on the science, that everything I found was magnificent! I soon stumbled upon James Scott's book "Butterflies of North America" and it opened the door to the wondrous world of butterfly species for me. I wore out my first paperback copy of his book, scouring the pages over and over as I traveled all over Colorado pursuing butterflies. This lead me to graduate school specializing in Lepidoptera and the rest is history. This summer 2016 marks my 19th year of collecting. My collection is small by most standards, because I only collect 2-3 specimens of a species from any particular locality, but it is growing and I'm very proud of it. Today it stands at around 5,000 specimens of Lepidoptera. Matt Below is a picture of my first collection. That first Monarch is in the bottom left corner! Haha!
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Post by NathanGrosse on Aug 4, 2016 3:02:58 GMT
I always love reading people's stories about how they entered the wonderful world of insects. My passion for the great outdoors and its inhabitants began at a very young age. When I was younger than ten, my grandmother instilled in me a love of birds that has continued to this day (birds are my second favorite group of animals after insects). But the love of insects came from my grandfather. He gave me my very first net and built me my very first insect keeper out of spare wood and an old window screen. I have many fond memories of wandering around the empty field behind my grandfather's bookstore sweeping my net at anything that flew.
The love of nature continued throughout the whole of my upbringing but I started getting very serious in insect collecting only about two or three years ago, when I was 18. (Yes, I am only 20, to add to the list of young collectors on this forum). I had always casually collected insects here and there, but it was after this point that I started a formal catalog of my collection and began using real insect pins, perfecting my spreading techniques, purchased some real Cornell drawers and began to absorb any information about insects I could. (www.bugguide.net became an invaluable resource).
Fast forward to the present, two-ish years later, and my collection has grown to close to 1300 specimens, 85% of which I collected myself. Still a very small collection by most any standards, but I have most of my life ahead of me to continue! I collect a little of everything, but my real foci are Coleoptera and Lepidoptera. Probably three-quarters of my collection consist of these two orders. I am always amazed at the collections I've seen on this forum. All of your knowledge, skills, and invested time and efforts never cease to amaze. I'm very glad I joined this forum, to say the least.
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