insect collection!

just to give you all an idea of the kind of work i was doing. i caught an inordinate amount of insects. we had to catch at least four samples from 20 different orders and then we had specialties in which we had to catch two specimens from 20 or so different species. My group's specialty was dung beetles (coincidence?) and we ended up pinning over 70. And i identified all of them because i am now a dung beetle expert, thank you very much. But so we would catch them in these traps and then if they seemed dead we would pin them. The problem is, dung beetles often "die" and then wake up again--especially the big ones. So one night we left three large dung beetles pinned to a piece of styrafoam on my dresser. We woke up in the morning to a scratching sound. I couldn't figure out what it was but then my friend checked the board, and sure enough, two of the dung beetles were there scratching, trying to get themselves off the board, despite the large pin through their bodies. I dont know if you caught that, but i said two. the night before there were three. it was the case of the missing pinned dung beetle who had someone removed himself and walked away with a pin through his body. not surprisingly, my room was a mess, so i went through a long search to find him. after 15 minutes there was still no sign of mr. dung beetle so i gave up. but later that day, i went to put on my shoe, and sure enough there he was. he was on his back with his legs waving frantically in the air, a large pin protruding from his body. i felt really bad--kind of. so we killed them with chloroform and pinned them for good.

P.S. In the photos you'll notice very tiny vials. These were used to house very tiny insects that we had to find in places like compost piles, etc. Some of the orders was smaller than the head of a pin. It was a little challenging.

PPS. my hairdryer really came in handy for drying the insects out! Luckily, i brought only necessary things to Africa.