|
Post by jshuey on Aug 22, 2020 18:45:15 GMT
I think that these educational riker mounts were very popular in the past - like 1950's through the 80's. When I was at the Ohio State (mid 80's), we teaching assistants had access to over 100 different riker preparations covering various topics - often economic pest oriented, but also basic taxonomy, life histories and so on. They were generally a mix of text, with photos and actual insects - often the insects were in "blown-glass" sealed tubes but sealed in the rikers as well. Some were commercially purchased (like from Wards), but others were made at tOSU for specific classes. Basically these were hands-on educational materials that were almost indestructible and were intended as a supplement to lab exercises. I used them a bit, but I was lucky in that I never had to TA intro-ent courses and I was definitely not an economic-ent kinda guy. So, not so much for the classes I TAed.
The other interesting thing that tOSU had, was hundreds of wet specimens in those blown-glass tubes that students could handle directly without damaging the bugs. Oh, one or two were totally destroyed each year, but as long as you did not drop them, they lasted forever. As opposed to the short-lived pinned bugs that students also used for basic taxonomy, which had to be replenished every few years. These tubes were made in-house at tOSU in the 30's and 40's according to my advisor.
John john
|
|
|
Post by jshuey on Aug 4, 2020 13:34:34 GMT
Beautiful work, John! What's the yellow-orange one (2 specimens) in the lower left unit tray? Looks like it might be a Geometrid moth mimic... Cheers, John H. They are a Entheus species, possibly E. bombus. I will probably have to dissect these to be sure. There is another dark species of Entheus right next to the lower one. j
|
|
|
Post by jshuey on Aug 3, 2020 20:41:40 GMT
WOW ! Now, that's amazing to me... Where do you find the time for all that preparation ? They are certainly well done. Shows us how someone who specializes on a group can even make "difficult to work with things" seem like no issue. I have never been any good with preparing skippers or microleps in general. Even Lycaenids and the like still can pose issues. I only now in these last 5 years have had better success by preparing things up whilst absolutely still fresh from the field. Seems like once rigor sets-in and the wings fold up like they are already in an envelope -- I've lost my window. Trash em' every time... Hence, I collect very few and have little to show for my efforts. Just one of your trays represents my entire holdings of personal caught and kept skippers ! Anyway, wonderful to see John. First, I'm working from home for the last few months - so I get up a couple of hours before work and work on bugs. Word just came down, that I'll be doing this until at least November 1st. I'm really tired of 2020... Second, I relax bugs using a method I developed for skippers and other similar small bugs. It's really simple, but bugs have to get spread the next day or they become waterlogged (some big skippers may take 2 days in cooler weather.). So, you need a large (1 gallon) ziplock bag, a small plastic tray that fits into the ziplock bag, two (or more) paper towels, and two (or more) facial tissues (just plain - no moisturizer or anything like that in the tissues). 1- Take the paper towels (cut to fit your tray) and wet them. Then ring out the water as best as you can - you literally want them as dry as possible. 2- Spread one moist paper towel out on your tray, and cover it with a dry tissue. 3- Lay your bugs out on the tissue (take them out of the envelope - this is where having lots of bugs with the same data is nice) 4- Cover the bugs with another dry tissue, and then a moist paper towel or two on top of that. (you can create as many layers as you want in order to keep your localities and dates separated) 5- Seal it up in the ziplock bag and wait 24 hours.
With a typical hairstreak or small skipper, a bead of water will squeeze out of the thorax the next day as you pin the bugs. They are often like fresh dead bugs. In the summer - it really works well. In the winter, it takes a little longer. And like I said, a big skipper or nymphalid may take an extra day.
Here are the downsides to this method. - On Pierids, you can get green water spots on the wings if things get too moist in there. The tissue paper mostly eliminates this problem.
- If you forget about the bugs for more than three days, they are probably ruined
- On really muscular skipper genera, the wings get a bit softer than you want, and they sometimes rip along a vein if you try and overspread them.
- And if one of your bugs has a case of "rot" in the envelope, it will likely just fall apart after this (I just had a really cool Drephalys species that I've never seen disintegrate before my eyes). This heartbreak is fairly rare.
john
|
|
|
Post by jshuey on Aug 3, 2020 16:49:33 GMT
Here's a new image of that hell mentioned above - papered bugs as they come off the spreading boards. Mostly from Brazilian Amazon, but also scattered locals such as Hispaniola, Peru, and even the good ol' USA. There are lots of really nice bugs in here, if you're into skippers. John
|
|
|
Post by jshuey on Jul 19, 2020 0:40:18 GMT
Thanks to both Johns and Trehopr1 for posting photos. All these specimens make me want to search for some skippers. Recently I try to more focus on this family but there is always some distraction on the field. John, how do you dispatch skippers, do you pinch them like other butterflies or do you use a killing jar. I tried to pinch them in the net but most of the time they would get ruined as they move so quickly and It’s almost impossible to corner them. John S's answer: I use a kill jar on almost every small bug I collect (rios, hairstreaks and skippers). That way the body is intact, especially the palps which are often removed during pinching. I loved cyanide back in the day as it dropped the bugs in less than a second. But I use ethyl acetate now. It's a little slower, and you end up with occasional rubbed wingtips on bigger skippers. And you have to hold the bugs a lot longer in the kill jar. But most of the bugs that come my way from other collectors are pinched - sometimes it looks like they used a vice or maybe a hammer! Depending on their skill level, there can be lots of wing damage on really active bugs in the net, scalped thoraxes, smashed bodies and of course missing palps. john
|
|
|
Post by jshuey on Jul 18, 2020 15:19:44 GMT
In 2010, he took part in a field guide to "The Skipper Butterflies of Illinois There are some great bugs in there. I have never seen cellus in Indiana, and arogos doesn't make it in our state. John
|
|
|
Post by jshuey on Jul 17, 2020 17:41:06 GMT
Jshuey, your photos make me commit the sin of envy. And if you're feeling really guilty about the E. chamuli trade, tell me the secret of getting the saliva-wet tissue paper skipper attractant scheme to work. I've tried and tried (US and Costa Rica) and failed consistently. (And no, I'm not gonna stop brushing!) So, I spent some time with Olaf Mielke a few years ago in SE Brazil, and he said that as best as he knows, dead fish bait and spit-lures do not work well outside the Amazon and Andes. He's the guy that figured the spit-lure thing out, and he is MISTER SKIPPER of South America - so I'm guessing he knows what he is talking about. We did not use them for our work near Curitiba, based on his recommendation. I had great success once with spitballs in Belize, and it was during a classic army ant raid. I was literally a couple feet from the advancing front, catching skippers and shaking the ants off my legs. Ouch. Otherwise, it just seems like you get an occasional bug, and thirsty. I've been told that a dropper bottle with a pinch of salt works just as well as spit. I've tried it in Belize, but again, just the very occasional bug... And I think most people would rather have the joanae versus an odd looking dun skipper! john
|
|
|
Post by jshuey on Jul 17, 2020 16:21:55 GMT
An entomologist with a history of bad behavior passed away, finding himself in the fires of Hell, with the devil focused on him. Despondent, the entomologist queried: "I suppose here in hell there are only ticks and diptera, no butterflies?" "On the contrary" replied the devil, "indeed we do have butterflies, many!" The bad entomologist relaxed with pleasure. "Here!" said the devil, handing him a large tupperware box. "Here are a few thousand skippers to set. We have a million more, so take your time." Chuck So, this is what hell might look like to many people! Pure skippers! And there's more! John
|
|
|
Post by jshuey on Jul 16, 2020 15:23:24 GMT
I love seeing all those skippers, John! Good going. Skippers can be tough to come by in the neotropics, per my limited experience. Skippers and hairstreaks are where the interesting collecting remains to be done, though. Cheers, jh John, Two of my most treasured bugs - you gave me. Euphyes chamuli from Guatemala. The look pretty much like E. vestris from the US - small and dark brown. But chamuli is endemic to the highlands of Chiapas+Guatemala and these specimens were collected by Edwardo Welling. I think that was part of the Papilio joanae trade. I think you got taken!!!! And skippers are actually quite common in the neotropics. But really, really, collecting them is fairly incompatible with collecting other, more showy bugs. As soon as you start thinking about Morphos and Papilios too much, you quit noticing the little brown jobs flying along the edge of the trail... For example, the flip side to my narrow focus, is that I collect very few swallowtails relative to other people. I typically see them at the very last second, and don't have a chance before I spook them off. A great example are males of Heraclides erostratus, which roost along shrubby edges of trails in the late afternoon a meter or so above ground. I saw them on a regular basis in Belize, but have never collected one because until they fly, they are not part of my search pattern. I don't see them until the are in wild flight, avoiding the big mammal lumbering down the trail... John
|
|
|
Post by jshuey on Jul 16, 2020 13:25:35 GMT
You have opened a can or worms here! The first is what used to be the genus Polythrix - there are two undescribed species in this drawer. The other is part of the Urbanus proteus complex, with a few green species shown and then Urbanus dorantes (brown). (there are 2 more drawers of this species group in the collection). You start to see why I need more space! This is the one family where I very aggressively acquire material from local collectors and through trading. When I was working in Belize, usually with 1-2 volunteers also collecting for me, I generated so much excess material in the "big-pretty" groups that I was able to work some great trades. I'm sure that people thought they were really getting the best of me, but I wanted Hesperiidae, and it's amazing what offering up a few Preponas will get you. Sadly, my trading material is pretty much depleted now, and I broke my foot almost a year ago and still can't imagine hiking up a mountain. So who knows what the future holds for me for field work. John
|
|
|
Post by jshuey on Jul 15, 2020 21:44:36 GMT
Hell Yes, I just gave away all my North American Bugs that are not skippers, specifically to make room for more skippers. I now have space for exactly 166 drawers of Western Hemisphere Hepsperiidae john
|
|
|
Post by jshuey on Jun 29, 2020 13:34:53 GMT
Trehopr, Not sure, but I think most of the blue buckeyes are the result of selective breeding. I have a couple of pictures of them but I'm unable to post them to this website. If you'd like to see them, send your email address to my message box & I'll email the pictures to you. The ones for sale may be the result of selective breeding, but they do show up regularly in almost the western hemisphere Junonia species. More commonly in the tropical species, but someone posted a blue coenia a few years back on one of the forums that was wild collected. john
|
|
|
Post by jshuey on Jun 4, 2020 15:41:32 GMT
If any of you want to see the Holland Room cabinetry featured in a movie - well, actually as a background - check out the movie 'Silence of the Lambs'. When FBI agent Clarice Starling (played by Jodie Foster) visits the Carnegie (called the "Capitol Museum" or something like that in the film) to get the moth pupa taken from a victim's mouth identified, there is a scene of her walking down one of the aisles in the Holland Room. As is common in movies - she starts out on the bottom floor and ends up in a place physically impossible in real life - at the end of a aisle on the upper deck! The director of the movie bought custom-made Venetian blinds for the entire Holland Room because he didn't like the existing ones - too light in color - cost him thousands, but they still look great! We also have one of the pupa "props" that oozed petroleum jelly (as all good pupae do!) and a napkin with Jodie Foster's lip prints, where she had fixed her lipstick between takes. That was snatched out of a waste basket by Dr. Rawlins - after all, we are a museum and we do need to conserve things. Once we installed a molecular lab in the 2000's, more than once it was suggested that we possess the DNA to clone Jodie Foster.
I visited the collection once right after the film was released. I still remember John Rawlins running around, saying "and then Jodie walked here, and then she was ... ." I think he was truly awestruck by her! He did not share a view of the napkin with me - I would still remember that for sure! Here is a article I dug up that has a photo of Dr Rawlins on the top floor of the Holland Room. He is standing on the grate of the iron "2nd floor" with a crazy long drawer in his hand - carnegiemuseums.org/carnegie-magazine/summer-2018/living-in-a-bugs-world/. In general, as I remember the Holland Room, it was so full of stuff that it will not photograph very well. It's more about sharing the space with the author of the butterfly and moth books - seeing some of the actual specimens figured, seeing actual Holland-collected bugs. Seeing Clench's material as well. The room is entomological history. John
|
|
|
Post by jshuey on Jun 4, 2020 15:34:49 GMT
.... Don't know if you remember, but the original Holland drawers were about 50% longer than a normal insect drawer and the bottom had a wedge-shaped flange along each side. That flange rode in a groove in the serrated sidewalls of the cabinet. Over time, the sidewalls of the cabinets warped a bit, causing some drawers to stick and others to fall. ...
Jeeze - yes I remember these drawers. The Carnegie was the first "real" collection I ever visited - I was probaby still an undergrad at Ohio University (about the same time I met you along the roadside in Hocking County!).. And those drawers just about gave me a heart attack. Some were so tight that I didn't dare try and pull them out - and others seemed ready to drop to the floor at a moment's notice. And they were so long... . That's the first time I saw many neotropical species - face-to-face. I still remember marveling over the hairstreaks - probably Evenus and related genera. Huge drawers of nothing but blue! It was amazing! John
|
|
|
Post by jshuey on Jun 4, 2020 13:56:13 GMT
Bandrow, it would be very kind of you if you could at some point show us a few pictures of the Holland room. I would love to see some of that Victorian cabinetry and perhaps a few shots of those Holland drawers. Historic collections are always something to behold... Hey Bob, The other thing that people would find interesting, are photos of the "shipping containers" used to get the field-pinned material back to the museum from those salvage efforts. Honestly, people have no idea that you can (or would) do something like this! I actually used a miniature version of these to send send a few hundred moths to Europe many years ago. I stunned the recipient, and the bugs came through perfectly. This all presumes that you have digital photos with you at home... I assume that your trips to the collection are limited right now. I just received word that TNC will continue our "global soft office close" until September 1. I'm going to go frigg'n crazy soon! John
|
|