Insects collection - pool skimmers beat YPTs and UV light

A forum to ask questions, post setups, and generally discuss anything having to do with photomacrography and photomicroscopy.

Moderators: rjlittlefield, ChrisR, Chris S., Pau

zzffnn
Posts: 1896
Joined: Thu May 22, 2014 1:25 pm
Location: Houston, Texas, USA
Contact:

Insects collection - pool skimmers beat YPTs and UV light

Post by zzffnn »

New Edit: I did a side by side comparison. Swimming pool skimmer holes captured more quantities and varieties of insects, than yellow pan traps (with either 70% alcohol gel, 91% alcohol liquid or soapy water) and UV night light (placed over a big pan of soapy water). I suspect it is because our pool's night light is not insect blind (and thus attract insects and night) and oak trees above the pool also help producing insect casualties.

Original post:

I apologize if you know this already:

I) swimming pool skimmers are good place to hunt for freshly dead (and not stiff) insects;

II) Hobby Lobby sells many cheap and useful stuffs/tools for macro/micro photography.

As I often take my sons to swimming pool this summer, I have formed the habit to check pool skimmers. So far, I have found:

1) a dozen or so ladybugs
2) 4 (metallic) green June beetles and a dozen brown ones;
3) 2 big green cicadas and a dozen tiny ones of different sizes;
4) a green grasshopper;
5) 4 wasps of two types;
6) 2 green/red bugs that are nice looking but not identified yet;
7) 3 spiders;
8] 2 dragonflies.

All the above are freshly dead and good looking (there were more plain looking ones that I did not collect). At least half of them had/have flexible/poseable joints.

The advantage of looking into pool skimmers is that you can:
1) keep the pool cleaner for longer, as you will clean out dead leaves too;
2) rescue drown but not dead insects - we rescued 2 bees, 2 dragonflies and 2 green June beetles already. The beetles were actually gently pinned down (but injured - as they looked dead) and came back to life.

The disadvantage is that you may see lots of dead cockroaches - so use a small net and gloves, if you can hold your gag reflex.

Then you need to pin down your insects and photograph them. That is where Hobby Lobby comes in (it is a hobby craft store). They sell the following cheaply:

1) map pins and longer pins/needles, which I find useful for pinning insects;
2) container boxes with different pocket sizes;
3) optically clear glue and glass cylinder beads for mounting butterflies on see-through glass frames;
4) mirrors of different shapes and sizes;
5) aluminum, wood and glass blanks, which I find useful for microscopy;
6) threads/wires of relatively precise thickness - you can use them for parfocalizing your microscope objectives for example.

5) and 6) may be found in a home improvement store for even cheaper, though I found hobby stores easier to browse and better organized.

If you are into collecting seashells, Hobby Lobby's craft grade (low grade) seashells may actually contain some fine+ fine++ grade specimens. Their tiny/small craft shells from India/Philippines have many beauties, though their big ones ate quite decent for building up the base of your collection/starting out as well. eBay is better for finding gem grade specimens, for a higher cost, of course.

zzffnn
Posts: 1896
Joined: Thu May 22, 2014 1:25 pm
Location: Houston, Texas, USA
Contact:

Post by zzffnn »

I have updated the above post with a comparison.

Post Reply Previous topicNext topic