Ok Ok, I know I said I would never try to collect and pin my own insects ever again BUT I sorta want to now. I spent last night reading though the chapter of insect collecting in my Peterson's Field Guide and the idea of going out on excursions looking for butterflies with my net and collecting specimens really appealed to me (in my mind I saw myself as Darwin out in the field collecting specimens and sketching them in my journal) lol, plus I think collecting your own is so much more rewarding than just going online and buying what you want. To be able to look on the wall at a specimen that you caught, pinned and tagged is a better story to tell than, yea I bought it online. I'm having a moral dilemma with it though because I'm killing this beautiful thing for the purpose of hanging it on my wall?! I'm trying to rationalize it by saying their life cycles are only a few days, a week at the most and they're just going to die or be eaten anyway so whatevs... I forget where I read the alcohol pads killing jar method so maybe that was the reason why the first time I tried didn't work out so well. I'm going to make a killing jar the way the field guide says to with ethyl acetate and hope that does the trick. I'll get everything ready and come spring/summer, the hunt is on.
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butterfly collecting,
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