Rotating heads

[Kenelm Philip]

Mark Walker asked about rotating heads of papered butterflies when spread-
ing them. I have noticed the same problem--with papered material the head
often ends up rotated to one side or the other, making it difficult to
position the antennae correctly.

What I do is as follows: 1) make sure the specimen is fully relaxed--
which takes about 24 hours in my relaxer. 2) after pinning the specimen
through the thorax, and before pinning it into the groove in the spreading
board, inspect the head position. If the head is rotated, use a probe to
rotate it about the same amount in the opposite direction. One or more such
attempts will usually bring the head, after you remove the probe, to
something close to the correct position as far as rotation goes. 3) pin
the specimen to the board and spread.

I have never had a head 'lock' into the rotated position--the head always
rotates freely when pushed. However, I don't freeze them--I use ethyl
acetate to kill them. Maybe something about freezing does that?

							Ken Philip
fnkwp at uaf.edu




 
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