Drying an insect
, you can not only leave a small piece of summer and preserve good impressions of your vacation, but also create an original souvenir. Let's talk about how to do it right. It's better to start by making a frame. To do this you will need wood or plywood, cardboard, glass, foam, paper and glue. First, 4 bars are cut out of wood or plywood - the basis for the frame. They should have the same width both on the front side and on the sides, and the length can be any. The ends of the bars must be cut at an angle of 45°. The smoother they are sawn off, the better the edges of the bars will meet when forming the future frame. It is necessary to make two cuts on the inside of the block along its entire length. One cut is made to insert glass into it. It should be slightly wider than the thickness of the glass so that the glass can be inserted easily and hold well. Another slot is needed to insert the back wall with the dried insect placed on it. The entire structure is secured using fasteners - thin metal plates pre-inserted into manufactured bars. To reach the back wall of the frame, these plates can be easily bent. The back wall is made of cardboard or thin plywood. In the center of the wall you need to make a rectangular cutout into which a foam plastic plate slightly larger than the cutout is attached, glued from the back of the back wall. Next, a beautiful fabric is glued to the back wall to give the frame a beautiful look. After this, we insert the glass into the frame, glue the bars with PVA glue and after the glue dries, we clean the frame with sandpaper. The frame is coated with furniture stain to give it a brown tint, and then several times with colorless varnish. Moreover, before applying each coat of varnish, you need to wait until the previous one has dried. When the varnish is dry, the frame is treated with fine-grained sandpaper. The coating is repeated 2 times, and the 3rd time the frame is simply varnished. The caught insect is killed in the stain. Strips of paper are placed at the bottom of a wide-necked jar, which are not needed when drying butterflies. The jar is closed with a lid, to which a cotton swab moistened with ether is attached to the bottom side, and left closed for several hours. Then the insects need to be straightened out immediately and pinned onto entomological pins before they dry out. For butterflies, flies, bees, wasps and dragonflies, pins are stuck vertically into the chest, and for beetles, grasshoppers and bedbugs into the right elytra. Next, wait for the insects to dry. The wings of the butterflies are carefully straightened, secured with strips of paper. To prevent the legs and antennae from breaking, they need to be positioned closer to the insect’s body. Next, we place the dried insect on the foam plastic of the back wall of the frame and glue a strip of paper with information underneath it. We insert the back wall with the insect into the finished frame and bend the fasteners.
In recent years, many people have been purchasing exotic animals as pets, which need to be fed accordingly. Bukahi brand
. Dried and fresh insects as food and treats may be of interest to owners of animals such as meerkats, hedgehogs, possums, turtles, small primates, fish, birds, rats, hamsters, terrarium animals and other insectivores. Before buying insects for food or treats, find out whether your pet can be given such food. Insect food is rich in protein and it is almost impossible to replace it. Made from crickets, grasshoppers, grasshoppers, mealworms, silkworms and other insects. Canned food keeps insects in their original form, fresh and tasty. When preserving, a special temperature regime is used; this technique allows you to soften all the hard parts of insects. All the nutritional qualities of insects are preserved. Canned insects are a wonderful delicacy, rich in microelements, high nutritional value and vitamins. And the animals themselves love them very much; for them, a canned beetle or cockroach is the best vitamin treat. Dried insects differ from canned ones just as fresh apples differ from dried ones. All insects are carefully selected and dried at the optimal temperature, which allows the insect to be thoroughly dried and all vitamins preserved. In nature, animals eat insect corpses, often already dried, so this food-delicacy is natural and is calmly accepted by animals; they will happily crunch on a dry bug. Insects, both canned and dried, have high nutritional and taste value and will be an excellent and indispensable food or treat for all insectivorous animals, birds and reptiles. Animals happily eat both dried and canned insects, even if you have always fed them alive. At home, the hunter's instinct, which you try to preserve by feeding the animal with live insects, atrophies. Therefore, all efforts to preserve it are ultimately pointless. Transportation and storage of canned and dried insects does not cause such difficulties as frozen and live ones. A refrigerator is required for transporting and storing frozen insects, but live ones must be carefully monitored so that they do not run away and be fed. Storing dry and canned insects does not require special conditions, reliable jars are difficult to break, they have a long shelf life compared to fresh ones and are quite difficult to spoil, and dry insects are carefully packaged and with careful handling the risk of causing damage to them is minimal. The benefits of dry and canned insects are obvious. The Bukahi brand is a high-quality natural food for exotic and insectivorous animals, birds and reptiles.
So summer is over. Leaves are falling. Let's better talk about how to take at least a little bit of summer with you. You can do this in different ways, of course, but the surest way is to leave good and unforgettable impressions of your summer vacation.
But since I am not a professor of psychology and I don’t know what memory will be pleasant for you, I will tell you about simpler and more material things that will leave you with that very particle of summer. In this article we will talk about how to dry an insect, and then decorate such an interesting souvenir.
Let's get started. You, of course, can do whatever is most convenient for you, but I will start by making a frame. Here's what we need for this: - plywood or wood - glue - glass - cardboard - polystyrene foam - paper
It is necessary to cut 4 bars from plywood or wood, which will later serve as the basis for the frame. All 4 bars should be the same width, both on the front and sides, the length may vary depending on what kind of frame you need. Trim the ends of the bars at a 45° angle as shown in (A). The sawing places are marked in red; the smoother you saw off, the better the edges of your bars will meet, forming the future frame. If you sawed off correctly, the gaps in the convergence of the bars will be almost invisible.
Let us now turn to figure (B). It shows a block in which you need to make cuts. The cuts are made on the inside of the bar, the letters “L”, “B” and “O” indicate the Front side, Side side and Back side (back), respectively. A longer slot is necessary for inserting glass into it, so it should be slightly larger than the thickness of the glass so that the glass can be inserted easily and held firmly. A short slot is needed to insert the back wall, on which our dried insect will be placed. The letter "K" in figures (A) and (B) indicates fastenings. The fasteners are thin metal plates that can be easily bent at any time and the back wall of the frame can be removed. The plates are inserted into the bars we made. The main part of the frame is ready.
Let's start making the back wall.
The back wall should fit completely into the slot we made earlier. As you can see from picture (C), there is a slot in the center of the wall into which the foam “P” is attached. The foam plate should be slightly larger than the slot. It must be glued from the back of the back wall, i.e. the side that will be closer to the wall when we hang the frame. The back wall is made of thin plywood or cardboard, after which some beautiful “T” fabric is glued to it, this will give the frame a more presentable look.
Insert the glass into the frame and glue 4 bars with PVA glue, let the glue dry. The frame is almost ready. After the glue has dried, clean the frame again with sandpaper. Cover the frame with furniture stain, this will give it a brown tint. Next, you need to coat the frame several times with clear varnish; between each coat of varnish, wait until the varnish dries properly. After the varnish has dried, go over the frame with fine-grained sandpaper. Repeat coating 2 times. For the 3rd time, simply coat the frame with varnish and let it dry. The frame is ready.
Well, now let's get down to the most important thing.
If you have already caught an insect, then that’s just great. The caught insect is killed in the stain. We take a jar with a wide neck, put strips of paper on the bottom (if you are going to dry butterflies, then strips of paper are not needed), close the jar with a lid, to the underside of which attach a cotton swab moistened with ether, leave the jar closed for several hours. After this, the insects are immediately straightened and pricked for the first day, before they dry out, otherwise some limbs will break. Insects are pinned onto entomological pins. Pins are stuck vertically into the chest of butterflies, flies, dragonflies, bees, wasps, or into the right elytra of beetles, grasshoppers, and small bugs. Wait until the insects dry out. The wings of butterflies are carefully spread on the so-called “spreaders”. First, one wing is secured with strips of paper, then the other. The legs and antennae are placed as close to the body of the insect as possible so that they do not break.
Now we place the dried insect on the foam back wall of the frame. We glue a strip of paper with information about it to the plate under the insect. We insert the back wall, but with the insect, into the frame we made. We bend the fasteners so that the back wall is firmly held in the frame. Our souvenir is ready.
A home collection of insects will increase interest in you when any guests arrive. Such products not only decorate your home, but are also a unique gift for loved ones.
Learn to make things with your own hands.
The success of the laboratory workshop depends on the availability of handouts offered to students for study. Below are recommendations for collecting, maintaining, processing and storing handouts. Collecting and preparing handouts can be done by students. To do this, they are given a specific summer collection task and instructions for preparing handouts
Spiders are usually collected in August-September, when many mature specimens are found, and fixed with 96° alcohol or 10% formaldehyde.
Large or medium-sized beetles (chafer beetle, Colorado potato beetle, etc.) are usually used as objects for studying the external structure of insects. Black cockroaches are also a good target because they can not only be captured, but also kept alive.
Insects are collected in the summer and, after fixing in a stain with ether or chloroform, stored dry in closed boxes, on cotton pads or in 75-80° alcohol. Dry insects are soaked 1-2 days before class. To do this, they are transferred from the mattresses to a fairly deep enamel bowl, on the bottom of which is laid calcined sand, moistened with boiled water, and on top of it is a sheet of Whatman paper. The camera must be tightly closed with a lid or glass. Soaked insects are pinned onto entomological pins, thin pins or sewing needles.
To study the external structure, whole insects and separated heads (for studying the oral apparatus) are boiled in 20% caustic potassium for 5-20 minutes. In this case, the soft parts dissolve, and the isolation of the necessary organs is facilitated (the mosquito’s head is not boiled down). Boiled insects and their heads are washed with water or alcohol.
Freshly fixed cockroaches are used for dissection.
Cockroaches are kept in a tightly closed terrarium with a top door. You can use wooden boxes without gaps, closed on all sides. One wall of the box is replaced with fine wire mesh. A layer of sand or sawdust is poured onto the bottom, shards from broken pots and crumpled paper are placed, since cockroaches need shelter. The cockroaches are fed bread, raw vegetables, and sometimes granulated sugar. There should always be a bowl of water or moistened cotton wool in the terrarium. The terrarium is kept in a dark place, ventilated periodically.
To make micropreparations of antennae, perioral organs and legs, insects are first boiled (as described above), the caustic alkali is washed in water with the addition of acetic acid, dehydrated and cleared in undiluted glycerin, and then embedded in a glycerin-gelatin mixture. In most cases, coverslips are provided with wax feet. Before embedding several small parts into one preparation, they are first glued to a glass slide with egg white. To do this, beat the protein into a foam, after falling off, mix it with an equal volume of glycerin, filter through a folded filter, add a little salicylic soda or camphor.
To study the development of insects, a series of larvae are prepared. To illustrate development with incomplete metamorphosis, it is easiest to use the black cockroach. Cockroach larvae are grown (in the same way as adults) and fixed with 2-3% formaldehyde. Micropreparations are prepared from the fixed material (as described above), embedding them in a glycerin-gelatin mixture. It is better to incorporate several larvae at young stages into one preparation.
It is more difficult to select material to illustrate development with complete metamorphosis. Larvae and pupae (for example, butterflies) are collected from nature and fixed with 70° alcohol or 4% formaldehyde. Before fixing, large larvae are dipped in boiling water and then carefully pierced in 2-3 places. Larvae and pupae are stored in bottles with a ground stopper in a dark place. As alcohol evaporates, the alcohol is constantly added, making sure that it completely covers the handout.
To study the diversity of insects, it is necessary to dry or fix insects belonging to different orders. First of all, pests or insects that are widespread in the area are harvested.
How to dry butterflies
So summer is over. Leaves are falling. Let's better talk about how to take at least a little bit of summer with you. You can do this in different ways, of course, but the surest way is to leave good and unforgettable impressions of your summer vacation.
If you have already caught an insect, then that’s just great. The caught insect is killed in the stain. We take a jar with a wide neck, put strips of paper on the bottom (if you are going to dry butterflies, then strips of paper are not needed), close the jar with a lid, to the underside of which attach a cotton swab moistened with ether, leave the jar closed for several hours. After this, the insects are immediately straightened and pricked for the first day, before they dry out, otherwise some limbs will break. Insects are pinned onto entomological pins. Pins are stuck vertically into the chest of butterflies, flies, dragonflies, bees, wasps, or into the right elytra of beetles, grasshoppers, and small bugs. Wait until the insects dry out. The wings of butterflies are carefully spread on the so-called “spreaders”. First, one wing is secured with strips of paper, then the other. The legs and antennae are placed as close to the body of the insect as possible so that they do not break.
Now we place the dried insect on the foam back wall of the frame. Glue a strip of paper with information about it to the plate under the insect. We insert the back wall, but with the insect, into the frame we made. We bend the fasteners so that the back wall is firmly held in the frame. Our souvenir is ready.
A home collection of insects will increase interest in you when any guests arrive. Such products not only decorate your home, but are also a unique gift for loved ones.
Are you going on vacation? Or maybe you have a business trip to Yekaterinburg?
You can choose a hotel in Yekaterinburg in advance by familiarizing yourself with the information that each hotel is provided with: the number of stars, amenities in the rooms and on site, tourist reviews of Yekaterinburg hotels and much more, which is very important for staying in a hotel. Ekaterinburg hotels will provide you with comfortable accommodation and wonderful, unforgettable impressions of your stay in this beautiful city. Happy holiday!
Which butterflies are better to choose?
If you plan to choose accessories for a room with butterflies, then there are a large number of different options in style, shape, color, and material. These can even be minor details, for example, a butterfly made from metal with stones or rhinestones. It’s nice if the insects are made of silver or gold. They can be used to decorate clothes, which gives charisma and confidence. To decorate a bouquet of fresh flowers, you can use a huge butterfly. It can be placed directly in the bouquet itself or attached nearby on the wall.
And bed linen with images of butterflies will create a special coziness in the bedroom. It can be used not only in summer, but especially in cold weather.
Another interesting option is to use bedside lamps or chandeliers with beautiful insects. This will enhance the romantic mood and give an atmosphere of magic and love.
If only one color is used in the room, then butterflies will add a special touch. And it doesn’t matter what color the walls are painted - gray, white or bright colors. In this case, the butterflies should match in color, only a tone or two lighter or darker. Beautiful insects can serve as decoration or can be used to zone a room.
Cotton bollworm
An insect with grayish-yellow wings. On the front wings there are two dark gray round and kidney-shaped spots, on the hind wings there is a brown border and a dark moon-shaped spot. Females lay eggs on leaves, flowers, and buds. Caterpillars have a variety of colors - from brown-black to greenish-yellow and white with three wide dark longitudinal stripes. They eat buds, leaves, ovaries and fruits, feed on 120 crops, including tomatoes, peppers, corn, pumpkin, zucchini, cabbage, onions, apple trees, pears, plums, and ornamental plants. The cotton bollworm overwinters in the pupal stage in the soil.
Cotton bollworm caterpillar on a tomato. Photo: Shutterstock.com
