Little Surprises

  One of the best parts of working with museum collections is finding little surprises. In a few of the earlier blogs we've talked about specimens nearly 100 years old in jars, new state records of insects, and legacies of research recorded with our aquatic beetle collection. One of the newer additions to our collection is a small donation of butterflies and dragonflies in little sleeves of paper, collected in Nicaragua in 1993. These specimens were collected by our former Herpetology curator Dr. Laurie Vitt, who also is a prolific insect collector and has donated large amounts of insects to our collection from his trips and his various properties.
   The reason that these insects are in little paper envelopes is because winged insects, especially dragonflies and butterflies, take up a lot of space despite being so fragile. To protect their delicate wings, their wings are folded back on top of each other right after the insect is collected and while the body still soft. Then it is slipped into the paper envelope flat, and then labeled with the collecting information to keep with it. The specimen is then transported from the field, and either softened up again (relaxing) so it can be spread like a traditional butterfly or dragonfly specimen, or its kept in the envelope.
Link to more information about envelopes and other collecting equipment. 
More information from the United States Department of Agriculture Systematic Entomology Lab

Image of sleeved material from the Systematic Entomology Lab website linked above.

In our case, the specimens were kept in paper envelopes for the past ten years. This has unfortunately led to mold, discoloration, and other problems that need to be remedied. So, like opening little Christmas presents, I've been slowly opening up each envelope and moving the specimen out into its new home, a glassine envelope. The information for the specimen is also being cataloged, and the number for the record is temporarily written on a piece of the old envelope and clipped to the envelope until we can print new labels on acid-free paper to put in with the specimen. The process can be seen below:

Some examples of pre and post re-sleeved butterflies

  Right now I've been working with Nymphalidae butterflies, with a lot of them being Heliconid butterflies. These butterflies (the best example being the orange and black striped one on the top) are very prevalent in the New World Tropics, and a lot of the material we have belong to this group. They can be identified by their almost oval-shaped front pair of wings, versus the more triangular and similar-sized front and back wings in other groups of butterflies. You can really see the colors of the butterflies and can identify them better in the clear envelopes versus the old, dirty paper ones they used to be in. Now researchers can look at them and actually be able to know what we have!
      I still have that large stack of butterflies left to go on the left, but I'm really enjoying seeing what we've gotten and putting them into their new fancy homes. I'll keep you posted with what other little gems we find along the way!
     Have a great weekend everyone!