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Post by vabrou on Jan 5, 2016 18:55:41 GMT -8
Cabintom A few pointers and some encouragement to increase one’s productivity in spreading insect specimens. The goal being to reduce pinning hours and increase productivity volume. Consider the ‘BIG PICTURE’ ‘how many thousands of specimens will you have pinned at the end of each year, or 10 years, or 50 years’ ? 1. Learn how to pin specimens using both hands at the same time, always a pin in each hand. I did this over 40 years ago, and all it takes is a little practice and innovative thinking about the task you are performing. Practice on less valuable specimens at first, you will save on curse words too. 2. Learn how to work on two specimens at the same time, e.g. left hand finishing up on one specimen, right hand starting another specimen next in line on the pinning board. This will happen eventually as one gets acclimated to the ambidextrous pinning technique. Consider your technique is akin to working on an assembly line. 3. Learn how to create a work space that promotes increased productivity, e.g. have your pins out and available in an open pin storage block, don’t pick up one pin at a time, grab 5 or 10 at a time and place them next to the specimens you are working on. Better yet, design your pinning boards so they have a side extension along the bottom edges to place these pins upon, using a single motion, not one pin at a time. This will become second nature as your technique improves over time, and with practice. see photo 4. Don’t bother with dumb and useless techniques as trying to pin out specimens using string to hold down wings on a one specimen board. Think about it, wrapping a string around a board 20-30 times on a single specimen block of wood has a productivity coefficient near zero. And you will still need to tie the ends of the string to one or more pins, and manipulate the wings and antennae; more lost time. 5. You may want to learn how to pin out lepidoptera specimens holding down all four wings and both antennae using only 2 pins. Don’t tell me it can’t be done, I have done this for 40 years, especially with smaller specimens. Though, I will admit, one occasionally has a failure if pins aren’t inserted far enough into the boards. In the big picture, if you are pinning 30,000-40,000 specimens a year, an occasional failure is statistically insignificant. Some specimens may require many pins to hold cardboard down upon spread wings, especially the larger winged species, moths with strong wing muscles, like sphingidae. I don’t use see-through paper, if you do, it’s because you listened to too many people who know less than you do, about pinning specimens. If you use lined or ruled paper, then you are a beginner who thinks he has remarkably discovered a good idea that thousands of others haven’t previously discovered. It is not a good idea, nor is it necessary. How will you know if you have succeeded ? When you find yourself always out of available storage drawers. This situation will now become you next hurdle to get past. Can’t afford to buy drawers, learn how to make them yourself. Then learn how to make them better than those you can buy from an entomological supply house. There is always another challenge one encounters in accomplishing any task. see photos I will end by saying ‘Don’t believe anything someone else tell you, find the answers you need by doing your own research about these things’. If plan ‘A’ fails, there is always plan ‘B’ ‘C’ and so on. Consider, the most notable entomologist of the past were not necessarily good, knowledgeable, or productive entomologist, what they excelled at is - writing a book about these subjects, and getting you to pay them for the book. I have built one of the largest private insect collections in North America, and I haven’t yet bought a pinning board, or bought a light trap, or taken an entomology course, though I have had a dozen or more request to be a guest lecturer to college and university entomology classes and others. Don’t settle for mediocrity, always place quality as the number one goal while accomplishing these task.
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Post by nomad on Jan 8, 2016 9:54:35 GMT -8
In Britain, the best Moth catcher is by far the MV Robinson moth trap. The moths fly in, then after a short while, settle down in egg-style boxes and you search through you catch in the morning, keeping those you want and then release all those you do not need. A very sensible collecting method. Kill all drums-traps, in my opinion, should never be used.
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Post by vabrou on Jan 10, 2016 6:50:15 GMT -8
nomad, it is a well know fact that the Robinson trap is a very inferior insect trap to some other design concepts. Yes, it attracts and captures specimens but is a very old design and no one in more than half a century has published concerning improvements to this trap in England or elsewhere. I'm sure is works sufficiently, but not very well, in certain congested human population environments, but away in remote areas away from people, is a poor choice, especially because the amount of insects in well forested areas quickly overwhelms a Robinson trap. That is the major reason why this trap is not used at all by most others around the world. One would think that this trap would be found around the world by now if it worked well, but it is not found across the world. I evaluated the Robinson trap and dozens of other insect traps in use across the world over 47 years ago with my own field testing and it failed miserably to most all other existing trap designs and uses. The compactness of the Robinson trap and the good placement of the lamp position and baffles and funnel is easy to use and carry, which has made this trap popular.
Likewise, I tested the use of a white sheet in 1969, and discovered that the collector is not even aware that use of a sheet does not capture about 30% of the species coming to the sheet area compared to the amounts captured with a collecting chamber attached to a light trap. Actually one obtains more insects at a sheet, if the sheet is totally black in color, not white. Many other researchers have document that use of the color black is superior over the color white when attracting and collecting insects.
If you don't believe anything I have said here, then you have not read the plethora of published research articles available worldwide about these matters. One will not find much of this on the present day internet, because these matters were published in scientific journals and publications of the earlier times. Very little of what I have said here is new, many of these things have been documented in literature by others before most of us alive today were born. I spent decades in many university and public libraries obtaining copies of these past publications.
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Post by nomad on Jan 10, 2016 9:18:03 GMT -8
I believe no one needs to update the Robinson trap in Britain because its the best there is for use here and in European and other temperate regions. You can also use it in front of a sheet in the tropics. Most traps will become over whelmed by sheer weight of numbers of insects in the tropics, that is why collectors use sheets. I do not see why you have to kill every moth in a trap in North America. Not only will you diminish numbers of rare and common species in the area where the traps are used, you are taking away a vital food source for insect eating bats.
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Post by vabrou on Jan 10, 2016 11:32:43 GMT -8
nomad the reason is what I have repeatedly said. You, yourself are not even aware of about 1/3 of the species, not specimens that come to your sheet, only using a white sheet. I want to find all of those other 1/3 of the species and specimens as well, and the species that will not land on a sheet, there are many species of insects like this. And one needs large numbers for the same reasons there are 50 million specimens in any of the larger museums, not to look at in a frame on a wall, but for scientific reasons, taxonomical, phenological, morphological, genitalic variation studies. These are just some of the reasons we are able to discover new species because we collect hundreds of thousands and when you do you will discover there are a dozen cryptic species, or species one would never consider collecting because you mistakenly assumed they were a common, and useless to collect species, that is how I discovered hundreds of newly discovered species. Then to better scientifically describe a species, one needs quite a lot of material to do that taxonomically to base you new species description upon.
Lastly, I have mentioned discovering over 400 species here in my state of Louisiana new to science, that amount was just Lepidoptera, in particular moths. I also have discovered many hundreds of new species of flies, wasps and bees, and hundreds of new coleoptera species. If you are a sheet collector, I ask you how many species have you discovered ? One has to have a basis ( a collection of specimens) upon which one could pull from in order to discover these things. This is quite different mindset from going around collecting a few dozen butterflies with a net. I am not some ogre destroying the insect fauna. In fact the population of insects increases in the areas one operates light traps and other traps over years and decades. I know what I'm talking about because I have done the research and documented it all. No one can argue with me, because no one has proof to the contrary, unless they have operated traps for millions of trap hours as I have done the studies and claiming a different result. You say how can the population increase, well I don't plan on writing a book here in a forum on all this, but I have answered this question by publishing some aspects of this research in bits and pieces as I am able numbers and data about the various species in about 325 articles and studies about hundreds of particular species I have encountered. I am addressing my research from a different mindset, not just being a guy with a butterfly net or collecting with a light a few time each year or on holidays. I run most of my traps automatically , or on photoelectric on/off controls whether it is pouring down rain for days, or in hurricane conditions, or in below freezing conditions, unlike most everyone else I know that doesn't collect in these conditions. Why would you spend a considerable portion the limited hours available to living on this planet using a piece of antiquated collecting equipment as the Robinson trap ? Do you still ride around using a horse and buggy, or do you still listen only to the radio, or do you play songs by winding up your phonograph, or collect with a lantern and flame as the earlier collectors did in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries ? I doubt it. If one expends time, energy, and money doing something, one should strive to do it the best possible way. Of course this is just my personal opinion. All the best if you disagree, some of us excel in accomplishing activities, most persons do not. Most person will be in the bell of the bell curve, those happy to go through life like most others around him, then there are the outliers, those beyond the ends of the curve, and some at the very extremes, both positive and negative. That is what makes us who we are, we all have the ability to think and do things differently.
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Post by rayrard on Jan 10, 2016 12:13:38 GMT -8
If anything, Mr. Brou's studies have shown that even super-heavy collecting of insects in one particular region will not cause the extinction of any of them. If so, he would have seen a marked decline of the species at his lights over time. More likely the decline of any insect species is due to large scale disturbances and habitat destruction. Villifying collectors because they collect a species at one locality is not logical. The species didn't get reduced to that one locality due to collectors, and if it did it was already vulnerable to any natural extinction event. This is the problem collecting faces with the Glassberg NABA situation. They are appalled by collecting efforts on the scale of vbrou's but have no facts to back up their reasoning besides "lots of cute butterflies and moths are dying".
It is frustrating that those anti-collectors have literally walled off the Rio Grande Valley. Are any of these idiots vouchering "first U.S. records" for these butterfly species? Nopem because a hundred grandmas and grandpas want to take a mediocre picture of it so it can sit on their computer and not a museum where the specimen belongs.
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Post by joee30 on Jan 10, 2016 12:55:56 GMT -8
I agree with you on that aspect, Rayrard. I have gone on many collecting trips in California and Arizona, and had NABA and bird watchers try and guilt trip me about collecting, or run me off by complaining to a ranger or police officer. I don't think all the NABA folks are bad, but some just give them all a bad name, just like some of the bad collectors. I wonder why we are villified? I mean, I collect what I need, which is few, but it certain leps are abundant, I will collect a couple more for trading. Most of my collecting is relegated to collecting for the university I do work study for.
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Post by vabrou on Jan 10, 2016 16:08:36 GMT -8
rayrard, you are very correct in your statements. I have written about these issues for decades. Habitat destruction is the #1 reason why we don't see some populations of insects any more. These species have to have foodplants to feed upon, everything is getting bulldozed and replanted with particular crops, e.g. corn, and palm oil, and by vast neighborhoods of human dwellings and buildings for business and other activities. The natural plants and trees removed and destroyed which are the foodplants of the insects and consequently affecting the other animals dependent upon insect populations.
Consider if you will the billions of ultraviolet street and road lamps that have been operating for over a half century across the world. Each and every one of the billions of lamps are in fact an insect feeding station for bats throughout the entire nighttime hours of darkness, then in the daylight hours the birds descend to feed upon the specimens resting below the lights, along with frogs, lizards rats, mice, shrews, possums, raccoons, and similar small mammals. Every 24 hours it has been a feast of insects. The same situation occurring with MV yard lights on farms and people's homes, and huge high rise buildings each have hundreds of façade lamps so they will look pretty, operating in which turn into feeding stations as well. Then aerial spraying of millions of tons of insecticides which can travel as small airborne droplets more that 20-25 miles from the intended site of application. All the insect collectors of the world are inconsequential statistically insignificant to the highest degree regarding our collecting activities. It is the expansion of the world's population that is causing all of this devastation. The earth has 6,000,000,000 too many people, and this number expands tremendously each and every day.
In North America, e.g., within the United States, the majority of all of the major forest of the eastern US were cut in the 1700s and 1800s. And this vast area was replaced by concentrations of human populations who are afraid of being in the darks and have to have their neighborhood lighted continuously with hundreds of millions of ultraviolet street, yard and home lamps operating continuously for over 60 years.
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Post by rayrard on Jan 11, 2016 9:29:47 GMT -8
I agree with you on that aspect, Rayrard. I have gone on many collecting trips in California and Arizona, and had NABA and bird watchers try and guilt trip me about collecting, or run me off by complaining to a ranger or police officer. I don't think all the NABA folks are bad, but some just give them all a bad name, just like some of the bad collectors. I wonder why we are villified? I mean, I collect what I need, which is few, but it certain leps are abundant, I will collect a couple more for trading. Most of my collecting is relegated to collecting for the university I do work study for. I got bullied by a NABA couple at a well known locality for Hoary Elfin in NJ. Me and a friend had showed up and saw a bunch of cars there and watchers in the field, so we left the area and left them at peace to take pictures. We returned an hour later to collect (mostly azures) and a single car shows up with two people in it (middle aged). We are walking back to our car and we approach and say hello. We immediately get the attitude and scolding, and sarcastic responses when I say I am affiliated with an institution. We have an exchange of rude comments and we take off. The encounter ruined our collecting day as we wanted to get out of that area as to not run into more of these folks. I cannot imagine trying to collect in the S. Texas area for fear of a NABA militant that is off their rocker. They have their right to refuse collectors in their little gardens, but don't mess with us on public property.
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leptraps
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Post by leptraps on Jan 11, 2016 12:17:49 GMT -8
Back in 2003 or 2004 I was at a local park conducting a presentation on Butterflies and Skippers. There were several women who were annoyed be the presents of a few drawers of specimens. After my presntation I took the group for a walk through the gardens to look for butterflies.
I found several larva Battus philenor on Pipevine. Several had Braconid wasp cocoons on them and I collected them for a UK Professor who is a Braconid specialist.
One of the women approached me and said I was a merciless person and that I should be more like them and consider all butterflies as living creatures. I should make a change in my thinking.
I could not resist, I told them that I was about to under go a major change in my life.
What sort of change she inquired. I looked at her as seriously as I could and without any change in my facial expression announced that I was scheduled for sex change operation.
One woman commentted "what would the result of such surgery do to change my attitude towards killing butterflies".
I do not know about killing butterflies but once I had the surgery I would become like a woman and then I would know everything, just like a bitch like you.
And yes, I have been requested to come back every year and present a talk on Butterflies & moths.
Every time I think of those to lady's I get the urge to "break wind".
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Post by rayrard on Jan 11, 2016 14:14:53 GMT -8
HA!
I wonder if they realized the caterpillars were never going to become butterflies, and that the drawer of specimens was to help people identify field marks for species they might be seeing that day. I wonder if those women would want to burn down all biological colelctions, or somehow raise all the specimens from the dead, or just freakin' DEAL WITH IT and not ruin the experience for others.
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Post by joee30 on Jan 11, 2016 16:38:34 GMT -8
People with the we take pictures, and we are holier than thou attitudes piss me off to no end. Get a lot of them in California. Had some butterfly photographers go complain once when me and a friend were collecting wood for a wood boring beetle project at a state park. We had permits and were allowed to collect and cut fallen logs. One lady flipped out in front of the rangers, and called us cowards for having a permit, which I told her a few "nice" words, and told her to have the day she deserved. Another time, there was a small group of photographers that we ran into in the Mayberry Park area in Reno, and they scolded and cussed me and my friend out for collecting bugs. Seeing that they were wannabe yuppies, and were a pathetic lot, we ignored them, and kept collecting. One lady decide to throw things and some starbucks drink at us. My friend recorded it on his phone while she called the cops, and claimed that we were harassing her and her group. the cops came, and my buddy showed them the video, which led to the cops handcuffing her for harassment, and lying to an officer. She was in the back of the cop car crying and pleading not to go to jail. As the officer asked us if we wanted to press charges on her, I walked near were she was sitting, and said that for the crap she pulled, I would like to see her rot in jail for a couple of days, but she was scared sh@#less, and we decided not to. Funny thing, is that we have done some blacklighting and nature walks dealing with entomology, and she was on a couple. We made our peace with her.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 11, 2016 17:04:08 GMT -8
You guys need to start taking a snake with you and when the screwballs show up just give them the snake treatment. Ask them if they would mind holding it a minute while you pretend to look for something. Explain that it sometimes bites. You will clear the place out. Not only are snakes very important for controlling disease spreading rodents they are also effective at repelling unwanted solicitors.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 11, 2016 18:14:39 GMT -8
That same lady most likely has a handful of insects on her car radiator from the trip out, likely ran over dozens of basking insects/toads on the road, probably swatted several pesky flies/mosquitos, and perhaps stepped on a menacing spider. She probably lives in a neighborhood where they spray for mosquitos, treats her lawn with chemicals, sprays her vegetable garden with pesticides, and has a bug zapper for porch comfort. Maybe her home is now on what was once a woodland teaming with insect life. But....'that's ok'.......oh how we live in a world of double standards.
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Post by Paul K on Jan 12, 2016 3:27:16 GMT -8
I agree it is double standard. It's ok to smash house fly, mosquitos, wasp or any other ugly bug, but dare to touch a beautiful butterfly.
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