How do you kill insects for collection?

Agreed. But Syzygys is hardly an entomologist.
It's a known fact that several species have gone extinct because of amateur collectors.
And also, collecting isn't exactly studying.

I suggest he gets a good camera, and collects insects that way.

 

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What is with the namecalling?

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By the way, I don't want to collect anybugs, I amjust the curious type...

 

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The movie is about a collector and he has a bunch of them on the wall, so I guess he did kill them somehow...

By the way hairspray would make them sticky and they might get stuck in the wrong position...

Anyhow here is a guide how to do it:

http://www.defayette.com/how.html

There is pinching, freezing, killing jar, ethyl acetate and injection. Yeehhhaaaa!!!

 

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Which species have gone extinct because of collecting? Sounds specious.

 

It's the truth, but I can't be bothered by you believing it or not.

 

No name-calling

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We used to kill them (cockroaches) with CO[sub]2[/sub], when I studied biology.

 

IIRC some of the Morpho spp have come under serious commercial pressure from harvestors for kitsch art and tourist souvenirs, and there is a commercial trade in certain rare insects for other reasons, but personal collectors wiping out an entire species of insect would be news to me.

 

Enmos -you KILLED>>>??

 

I kind of had to..

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We once got a lesson in brain anatomy.
We were led to the bird cages and the guy there caught a bird and then cut off its head with a small lopper-like tool.
The cutting itself took only a moment but I could see that the bird was in mortal distress.
Once the head was off it kept on moving for a few seconds.. mostly the beak opening and closing, the movement getting slower and slower until it stopped altogether.
Some people walked away and others had an expression of anger mixed with disgust on their face.
I don't know about the other but I had to really restrain myself not to kick the shit out of the guy.
Instead I asked, rather pissed off, if he could have killed the bird in a more humane way. His answer was that the birds don't feel a thing of it..
I had a hard time believing it, but what are you going to do..
Needless to say, the image is still burned into my mind even today

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He then continued to peel the skull off of the birds head like you would peel the shell off of a boiled egg..

 

Do you think birds get killed in nature in human ways??

 

I just wanted to know which. :bawl:

 

If you want to know you should look it up.

 

Its the other way around, you're supposed to support your claim in biology, otherwise its irrelevant.

 

It's not a claim relative to the topic, so I don't care if it's irrelevant.
If you WANT to know what species, I suggest you look it up. Otherwise you can't really say you WANT to know, can you ?

 

Mod note: Off topic personal swipes removed.

 

Enmos,

The objective here is to adhere, even if only partially, to the scientific method. So, S.A.M. is correct – you made an assertion and the onus is on you to verify the claim if someone questions its accuracy. If a statement is made from a vague recollection only without any immediate details or references at hand, then that’s fine – just say so.

 

Ethyl Acetate.

Put Ethyl Acetate (nail polish remover) on a couple of cotton balls in a jar (the killing jar) and seal the lid.

Or, a more preferred method, is to simply pinch the thorax -not enough to get blood/just hard enough to crack the exoskeleton and force bits of thorax into vital organs.

The hard part is the actual preservation to follow. The butterflies can be stored individually in a paper envelope or paper folded over in a triangle and in a plastic bag in the freezer for a while. But when your ready to mount, you'll need to first relax the insect by placing a bit of boiled water (or relaxing fluid you can get from a hobby supply -this might be better since it has a disinfectant) on an absorbent pad at the base of a sterile container. Place the butterfly on top of this and give it some time. Days. It all depends on the humidity of the container.

For that reason, if you're using boiled water instead of a relaxing fluid, you'll want to put a drop or two of Lysol in the water that soaks the pad to prevent fungus from growing.

After the butterfly relaxes and the wings unfold, you can position it over a mounting board. This is essentially a three pieces of cork board set up such that two smaller pieces are fixed to the top of the third larger piece so that there is a groove big enough for the thorax to fit. You stick a pin through the thorax and pin it to the bottom cork aligning the thorax with the groove. Then the wings are carefully -carefully- unfolded and held down with thin paper strips (or the glassine material that stamp collectors use) pinned so that the strips hold the wings down.

Stick this in a safe spot with mothballs for about a month.

Then you can mount the butterfly but pinning it through the thorax on a display board. An enclosed display with mothballs secreted inside will keep insect infestation away.

 

It was like that.

But:

Worldwide, there are about 0.75–1 million known species of insect (class Insecta) (IUCN 1983), of which 72 species are currently regarded as extinct (IUCN 2000). The majority of these extinct insects came from island communities, particularly those that exhibited a high degree of endemism. Globally the principal causes of insect extinctions include deforestation, changes to aquatic environments, atmospheric pollution, loss of hosts, the introduction of exotic plants and animals, over-collecting and the use of pesticides (IUCN 1983). The largest of the extinct insects is the Lord Howe Island Stick-Insect (D. australis (Montrouzier)).
http://www.friendsofthephasmid.org.au/site/1437587/page/889765

 

that's how I kill flies/wasps that get into the house. Does it kill them or just make their wings sticky so they can't fly?

 

Thanks Enmos, that’s interesting. I wonder if the term “over-collecting” includes the harvesting of insects as food. Various insects are popular foods in many SE Asian countries.