Post by luehdorfia on Aug 21, 2017 18:31:53 GMT
trehopr1 thank you very very much for that detailed answer. Now I finally understand how it works, how the damage happened and what I can do better next time. I never realized that psocids can do such damage in such a short time of two or three weeks, that's how long I left the specimen on the boards normally.
Prof. Rose in Germany who introduced me into butterfly collecting never told me about that, since he probably never had that problem, he is chain-smoking, still at the age of 94 right now, about three packs per day inside his house,especially inside the collection room. His collection room has a stone floor, no books, and the spreading boards are just left on his desk for drying.
He also has several killing jars with cyanide inside the collection room. I spent four hours in his house and the cigarette smokes gave me a horrible headache, I highly doubt that any psocids can survive in that environment...
Unlike my collection room where my parents store literally hundreds of old books, nobody is smoking, and everything is a bit dusty.
Now it all makes sense. I actually stopped spreading stuff, since I saw that some of my very fresh and pretty specimens just changed during drying, I have bought a huge freezer and stored everything there for now, but now I can finally go back to spreading...
Concerning the burnets, I didn't know that burnets can get a little bit oily. I will try the acetone bath, but as you said, I also doubt that the original colour, especially the nice shimmer will come back. I just have to catch some more...always a good solution.
wollastoni thanks for that addition, I already had that happen once, so I always freeze specimens now, but now I know that they also have to be protected during the drying process.
Prof. Rose in Germany who introduced me into butterfly collecting never told me about that, since he probably never had that problem, he is chain-smoking, still at the age of 94 right now, about three packs per day inside his house,especially inside the collection room. His collection room has a stone floor, no books, and the spreading boards are just left on his desk for drying.
He also has several killing jars with cyanide inside the collection room. I spent four hours in his house and the cigarette smokes gave me a horrible headache, I highly doubt that any psocids can survive in that environment...
Unlike my collection room where my parents store literally hundreds of old books, nobody is smoking, and everything is a bit dusty.
Now it all makes sense. I actually stopped spreading stuff, since I saw that some of my very fresh and pretty specimens just changed during drying, I have bought a huge freezer and stored everything there for now, but now I can finally go back to spreading...
Concerning the burnets, I didn't know that burnets can get a little bit oily. I will try the acetone bath, but as you said, I also doubt that the original colour, especially the nice shimmer will come back. I just have to catch some more...always a good solution.
wollastoni thanks for that addition, I already had that happen once, so I always freeze specimens now, but now I know that they also have to be protected during the drying process.