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October 4th, 2004
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Q. Please recommend a system for the collection and preservation of aquatic insects. I am especially interested in what chemical to use in a 'kill jar.' I tried my wife's finger nail polish remover and by the time I got home all the insects had turned a dark brown. Do you recommend any entomology supply houses or books/pamphlets that cover insect collection and preservation? Thank you, I enjoy your articles.
A.
You mentioned use of a "kill jar" so I am assuming
that you are collecting adults rather than immatures.
However, I would guess that you must have some
interest in the immatures, so I'll throw in some
information on them, too.
A good source for these materials is the company
BioQuip, located at 17803 LaSalle Ave., Gardena,
CA 90248-3602. There phone number is (310)324-7931;
they will be glad to send you their catalog if you
request it. This is the source book for the equipment;
below I'll give you some references to methods.
According to BioQuip, the two killing chemicals of
choice for adults are ethyl acetate and ammonium
carbonate. Immatures are best preserved in 70%
alcohol or one of the different solutions such as
KAAD, Pampel's Solution, or Peterson's Solution.
All of these are mentioned in the BioQuip catalog.
I've been satisfied with 70% alcohol, but taxonomists
and other folks who must maintain long-term, permanent
collections usually use one or more of the special
solutions.
Two books which contain information about collecting
and preserving aquatic insects are:
Merritt, R.W. and K.W. Cummins.1996. An Introduction
to the Aquatic Insects of North America, 3rd Ed.,
Kendall/Hunt Publ. Co., Dubuque, IA. ISBN 0-7872-1761-1
Edmunds, G.F., Jr., S.L. Jensen, and L. Berner. 1976.
The Mayflies of North and Central America.
Univ. of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis. ISBN 0-8166-0759-1
The book by Edmunds is perhaps more applicable to
your interests, whereas the chapter in Merritt and
Cummins also involves a lot of material about
designing sampling programs and other information
pertaining to scientific studies. Similar information
is available in most of the books addressing various
insect groups If you have trouble locating something
that suits your needs, get in touch with me
(phone-970-577-1584, email- streamdoctor@aol.com) and
maybe I can suggest something else or even xerox some
pages out of my books to send you.
~ C. E. (Bert) Cushing, aka Streamdoctor 105 W. Cherokee Dr. Estes Park, CO 80517 Phone: 970-577-1584 Email: streamdoctor@aol.com
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The 'Stream Doctor' is a retired professional stream ecologist and
author, now living in the West and spending way too much time
fly-fishing. You are invited to submit questions relating to
anything stream related directly to him for use in this Q & A Feature
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