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Post by bandrow on Oct 21, 2018 17:50:51 GMT -8
Your description of catching that with a lazy swing reminded me of a similar catch in Madera Canyon in the 1980's.
I was hiking the trail above the upper parking lot and saw what I thought was an ichneumonid wasp flitting along in front of me. I swept it up, then kept bouncing it back into my net as it tried to escape - basically playing with it. Suddenly I got a better look and realized it was a longhorn beetle and grabbed it. Turned out to be Strangalia occidentalis - a real rarity and still the only specimen of it that I've ever seen.
I tried my damnedest to lose that bug, but failed - and so glad I did!!
Cheers! Bob
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leptraps
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Post by leptraps on Oct 25, 2018 17:18:48 GMT -8
A lazy swing usually occurs when I see a nice specimen that I usually do not want but will take it if I collect it. I did that one time on Lower Matacumbee Key in the Florida Keys. I saw what I thought was a Strymon columella and it turned out to be a Strymon limenia, at the time it was assumed to be a US Record. I would learn later that the late Stan Nicolay had collected specimens in the late 1950's on Key West.
However, I am really good with the "Lazy Swing"....
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Post by LEPMAN on Oct 27, 2018 18:26:39 GMT -8
I’m late to the thread! The first butterfly I collected that I still have in my collection is a Anartia amathea collected in 2012when I was 12. At the time I was in Brazil on a fishing trip at a friends ranch in entre rios. I saw the butterfly and caught it to use as bait, but ended up forgetting about it in my tackle box for a few years until I found it again. After finding it I looked up more info on butterfly collecting and collected a number of specimens. Surprisingly the specimen is in A- condition despite what its been through. It is also one of the only Brazilian specimens I kept mounted.
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Post by uvarmsrace on Jun 8, 2019 19:26:13 GMT -8
I started collecting in 1955, at age 6. I was fortunate to have an Entomologist living in my neighborhood who got my batteries charged up early. I still have a couple of my early-collected beetles, including a half-dermestid-eaten specimen of Rosalia funebris, taken at Auberry California on July 2, 1955.
In the mid 1990s, I bought a box full of "old stuff" from a dealer-friend in Arizona, named John Burie. He sold it all to me for $10/pound. Most of it was Central American material, mostly moths. Many were wrapped in folded newspaper envelopes, some of the papers showed dates as early as 1926. As was always the case with John, each specimen had full collection data. Most of these showed A. O. Porter as the collector. The several hundred specimens are still in my collection. Earliest label date I can find is June 11,1928. The moth is a now-faded, undetermined Xylophanes Sphingiid, from Chiriqui, Panama.
I found reading the faded newspaper envelopes to be almost as fun as the specimens, and I kept many of them under the bottom drawer of one of my Cornel drawer cabinets. They're still there today.
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Post by jhyatt on Jun 9, 2019 5:22:44 GMT -8
Around 1960, I caught a P. cresphontes in Lee County in extreme southwest Virginia. I was 12 at the time, and I still remember chasing it through several neighbors' lawns till it settled on someone's zinnia bed. I still have the bug, a bit faded and very flat from reposing in a Riker mount on the wall for many years (it's pinned and in a drawer now). I think it's about the oldest self-collected bug I have. I took good care of it because cresphontes is fairly uncommon in the Appalachians. Fond memories...
jh
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Post by joachim on Jun 9, 2019 7:02:27 GMT -8
I have a Papilio machaon 14.jan. 1972, I found the larva and riased it until January. My biology teacher told me to freeze the pupa. I was 16.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 9, 2019 7:32:09 GMT -8
Dug this pic out of me in the early sixties. Dad was rearing cecropias and that was the spark for 50+ years.
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Post by joachim on Jun 9, 2019 9:11:30 GMT -8
oh at that time the world was black/white.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 9, 2019 10:43:14 GMT -8
Yep.......times have changed.
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Post by nightwings on Jul 21, 2019 11:26:54 GMT -8
Although I started collecting around 1960, college, marriage, work etc left me with no time or inclination. In 1981 I picked it up again while working as a contract park naturalist in Wyoming after a life changing event. I still have many butterflies from Sinks Canyon State Park in Wyoming and probably some Hemileucas also. I now only collect and rear Saturniids. memories indeed...
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