Insect collection
An insect collection is a collection of dead and prepared insects that is created for scientific or aesthetic reasons. Most insects can be stored relatively easily as dry preparations due to the hard exoskeleton and, if properly housed, can survive for a very long time, even several centuries.
methodology
The best-known form of insect collection, which is also predominantly created by amateur entomologists, is the collection of dry specimens. Most beetles , butterflies , Hymenoptera , Diptera , bugs as well as some other groups retain their outer shape after death and drying, so that necessary for determining characteristics are still recognizable.
The prerequisite for successful preparation is the proper killing of the insect, which is usually done with ethyl acetate . In order to be able to view the animals from all sides, but at the same time to protect them from damage, there are various methods: The insect is impaled on a needle or glued to a cardboard plate that is put on a needle. Very small animals are put on extremely thin minutiae needles, which in turn are attached to a needle with a cardboard plate. In some cases, embedding in cast resin is also an option , especially with type material for which long-term protection against damage is particularly important.
The needle-punched insects are provided with a location label that provides information about the date and place of the find, usually also specifies the collector, and placed in a dust-tight, standardized size display case , the floor of which is lined with Styrofoam . The lid of the insect box is usually glazed.
Other forms of insect collection are liquid preparations that are soaked in alcohol . This occurs with soft-skinned insects such as mayflies , plant lice or reticulated winged birds . Finally, microscopic specimens are usually made of very small insects such as fringe-winged or animal lice .
Spread of insect collecting
With the emergence of entomology as a separate science in the 18th century, insect collections as well as natural collections from other branches of science formed an important basis for scientific work as a documentation and comparison tool. Eminent biologists such as the evolutionary biologists Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace were “passionate beetle collectors”. This importance continues to this day; the creation and maintenance of type collections is particularly important for the foundation of the nomenclature . Collections are also of increasing importance in research into biodiversity , the effects of climate change or for applied questions such as the identification of pathogens and pests and their origin. Another area of increasing importance is the provision of reference objects for DNA tests, for example as a basis for DNA barcoding .
In addition, insect collecting is and was also pursued as a hobby. For many naturalists, the creation of an insect collection was a very common and important preliminary stage to scientific entomology until the first half of the 20th century . In terms of cultural history, too, it was a popular hobby of numerous nature-loving people of all ages and countries that left its mark on literature, music and film. The most popular was the creation of a butterfly collection, which was mostly limited to the butterflies , followed by the study of the beetles . With the World War, then economic hardship and the subsequent overpowering competition of easily consumable media entertainment, the basis for the "hobby horse" of middle-class children and young people, which was still popular in Georges Brassen's youth ("La chasse aux papillons" / The butterfly hunt, ambiguous), largely collapsed. Here, only those who are for collectors remained obsession had become so as the writer Ernst Jünger .
But there are still amateur entomologists today who continue to create collections. As a rule, these do not pose a threat to the species collected, on the contrary, they are important sources of data for their conservation. Most collectors are organized in natural science societies or entomological associations. Collections are also common for data acquisition in the context of official reports, not only as a basis for comparison for the processor, but also in order to secure specimen copies that must ensure the correctness of the determination in case of doubt. For the creation of a collection, which also includes legally protected species , an official permit may have to be obtained.
In natural history museums , historical insect collections are intended to keep science and natural history alive.
literature
- The butterfly hunter and caterpillar, pupa, beetle, insect, spider, mosquito and plant collector or instructions on how to collect, learn to know, dry and store caterpillars . Ebner, Ulm 1837. (digitized version)
- Martin Berger: The insect collections in the Westphalian Museum for Natural History Münster and their collectors . (= Treatises from the Westphalian Museum of Natural History; vol. 63, no.3). Westphalian Museum of Natural History , Münster 2001.
- E. Herold: Teutscher caterpillar calendar ... together with an introduction to the search for the caterpillars, the necessary tools, their education to butterflies, the creation of caterpillar collections by drying and the like. Keeping the same . Fürst, Nordhausen 1845 (digitized version)
- Murray S. Upton: A rich and diverse fauna. The history of the Australian National Insect Collection; 1926-1991 . CSIRO , Melbourne 1997, ISBN 0-643-06322-6 .
- Vivienne M. Uys (Ed.): How to collect and preserve insects and arachnids . Pretoria 1996, ISBN 0-06-117337-1 .
- Franz Maidl: Guide through the insect collection of the Natural History Museum in Vienna . (= Publications of the Association of Friends of the Natural History Museum; 15/16). Österreichischer Bundesverlag, Vienna / Leipzig 1927.
- Karl Wingelmüller: The beetle and butterfly collector - instructions for making ... insect collections . Magdeburg 1896.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Andrew Berry : "Ardent Beetle-hunters": Natural History, Collecting, and the Theory of Evolution. In: Charles H. Smith, George Beccaloni (eds.): Natural Selection and Beyond: The Intellectual Legacy of Alfred Russel Wallace. Oxford University Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0-19-155358-5 .
- ^ Andrew V. Suarez, Neil D. Tsutsui: The Value of Museum Collections for Research and Society. In: BioScience. (2004); 54 (1), pp. 66-74.
- ↑ Mauro Mandrioli: Insect collections and DNA analyzes: how to manage collections? In: Museum Management and Curatorship. Volume 23, Issue 2 (2008), pp. 193-199.
- ^ PF Thomsen, S. Elias, MTP Gilbert, J. Haile, K. Munch: Non-Destructive Sampling of Ancient Insect DNA. In: PLoS ONE. (2009); 4 (4), p. E5048. doi: 10.1371 / journal.pone.0005048
- ^ R. Greg: Pohl (2009): Why We Kill Bugs: The Case for Collecting Insects. In: Ontario Lepidoptera. 2008. Published by the Toronto Entomologists' Association, Toronto, Ontario, ISBN 0 921 631 35 4 .
- ↑ JT Huber: The importance of voucher specimens, with practical guidelines for preserving specimens of the major invertebrate phyla for identification. In: Journal of Natural History. (1998); 32 (3), pp. 367-385. doi: 10.1080 / 00222939800770191
- ↑ theinsectsafari.com
