[NHCOLL-L:3600] Re: Butterflies without bodies

[Doug Yanega]

>We have a 25 year-old collection of butterflies still in glassine 
>envelopes that suffered a dermestid infestation resulting in many 
>with no bodies.  The wings are in perfectly good condition and there 
>is good collection data on most of them.  I want to keep them, but 
>am unsure how to store them, since they can't be pinned in the 
>traditional method.  Has anyone come upon this problem?  I was 
>wondering if the wings could be spread between two pieces of Mylar? 
>Thanks for your help.

Dragonflies and damselflies are traditionally stored permanently in 
glassines, and this is not uncommon for leps (our museum has some 
five drawers filled with glassine-stored leps); there's no reason not 
to simply leave the wings as they are, as long as the species are 
arranged in some sort of recognizable order.

Peace,
-- 

Doug Yanega        Dept. of Entomology         Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314        skype: dyanega
phone: (951) 827-4315 (standard disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
              http://cache.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82