Saves nine... a butterfly in time

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Lev Bely, 31.07.2013 20:39

Once our good twitter friend, entomologist Daniel Llavaneras (https://twitter.com/dllavaneras), came back from the expedition in the Andes and placed his Lepidoptera trophies, a dozen specimens inside an exicator, or simply relaxing chamber. Time went fast and one week later Llavaneras found that the gold had turned to miserable rust — specimens got covered in mould that surprisingly varied by up to 5 different species at least. Interestingly, some mould preferred abdomen, the other found thorax much tastier. Whilst the catch is obviously spoiled, Daniel, as he said in his post, got an interest in fungus specificity in Lepidoptera, and seems to feel as sad as enthusiastic over the new discovery. Pure scientist!

Moth affected by mould in a relaxing chamber, Daniel Llavaneras, http://theygocrunch.wordpress.com

Daniel's personal advice: “Don't pin tomorrow what you can pin today. Mold will attack if you let it, so always remember to pin specimens within 24 hours of leaving them in a relaxing chamber (unless you really want the alien teddy bears).”

Read his post “The perils of being busy” in full on http://theygocrunch.wordpress.com/2013/07/04/the-perils-of-being-busy/.

Follow Daniel Llavaneras on Twitter, https://twitter.com/dllavaneras, and get tuned for field notes as well as amazing macro pics of various arthropods.

They go “Crunch”, http://theygocrunch.wordpress.com

Photo: Daniel Llavaneras, http://theygocrunch.wordpress.com

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