Preserving colours in spiders?

[Ganoderma]

I have read a fair bit and haven’t seen much in the way of trying to preserve colours, they seem to think its inevitable. Does anyone here have any input? Are there any ways to help preserve colours?

 

I have always used either 70-95% ethanol. But i get a nasty fade sometimes only after a year. Because I want to keep them for identification and morphology. Colour is pretty important, and frankly, photos are just lame :eek_big:

 

What about formalin? Boiling water (kind of risky, but works for other buggies...)? Anyone have any input? I am mostly trying to preserve members in the family Araneidae.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Cedars]

I have read a fair bit and haven’t seen much in the way of trying to preserve colours, they seem to think its inevitable. Does anyone here have any input? Are there any ways to help preserve colours?

 

I have always used either 70-95% ethanol. But i get a nasty fade sometimes only after a year. Because I want to keep them for identification and morphology. Colour is pretty important, and frankly, photos are just lame :eek_big:

 

What about formalin? Boiling water (kind of risky, but works for other buggies...)? Anyone have any input? I am mostly trying to preserve members in the family Araneidae.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

I use drying for my collections. A nice sunny window. You do run the risk of specimin loss via other opportunistic creatures and sometimes I do get something ruined via mold. Another method that might work is freeze drying (to complete the drying process) after a few days/week of dryout in the window. But I havent tried that myself.

[Ganoderma]

do you prepare your in any special way? i have tried it but 2 things turned me away, varying amounts of dark fading and wrinkling.

 

Is there a way of keeping the abdomens full and rounded instead of turning shriveled and prune like? I have experimented a bit with injections but i think i am far too stupid to figure that out. any thoughts?

 

you can prevent infests with moth balls and other chemicals. Vapona is common but super toxic! mold is prevented by keeping them dry. i always keep silica gel and mothballs with all my dead dry bugs. Oddly enough i have a pupating beetle put into 75% ethanol that grew a fungus....guess that batch was watered down or old or something, still have. neat to look at.

 

I am also wanting to dry mount softer bodied insects such as crickets and immature grasshoppers, any tips on stopping the shrivel?

 

Lastly, i want to keep some in liquid so that they can be studied for classification and iding. This is mch much easier with ethanol. Is there perhaps a way of fixing the colour pigments that ethanol will not destroy? Any idea?

 

thanks for the feedback.

 

edit- Here is one example of a specimen i would love to preserve. The photo is bad but it has incredibly vibrant red/white/black with very find intricate patterns. be a shame to loose them!

[Cedars]

do you prepare your in any special way? i have tried it but 2 things turned me away, varying amounts of dark fading and wrinkling.

 

Is there a way of keeping the abdomens full and rounded instead of turning shriveled and prune like? I have experimented a bit with injections but i think i am far too stupid to figure that out. any thoughts?

 

I have one rule for collecting and that is I dont take live animals. Everything in my collection had to be found dead to begin with. I think this changes the outcome on preservation some because some of my specimins are damaged by their deaths. So I am not as picky about some damage to a specimin. And yes I do get the dark fading.

 

But I was going to suggest removing abdomen content with a syringe and replacing it with something else, whether silicone gel or plastic resin. Silicone gels I am familiar with are pretty thick, and if you get it on the outside of your item, its not transparent so it would impact the visual. Resins that I used when younger tended to give me trouble with air bubbles, especially in fine hairs found on alot of the insects. But I was also placing the whole specimen into the resin for preservation. Too little hardener would make the resin not set right, and I never had enough money then to keep buying resin to experiment more. Plus my rule of not taking live creatures limited how many times I could experiment with variations on preserving things.

 

 

you can prevent infests with moth balls and other chemicals. Vapona is common but super toxic! mold is prevented by keeping them dry. i always keep silica gel and mothballs with all my dead dry bugs. Oddly enough i have a pupating beetle put into 75% ethanol that grew a fungus....guess that batch was watered down or old or something, still have. neat to look at.

 

Good tip (moth balls)! Thanks!

 

I am also wanting to dry mount softer bodied insects such as crickets and immature grasshoppers, any tips on stopping the shrivel?

 

Assuming your taking live animals, dehydrate them for a couple of days before you mount them. That way the digestive tract will be empty of decaying fiber. I think shrivel is going to happen just due to the physics involved. ( I think physics is the correct term).

 

Lastly, i want to keep some in liquid so that they can be studied for classification and iding. This is mch much easier with ethanol. Is there perhaps a way of fixing the colour pigments that ethanol will not destroy? Any idea?

 

I never have preserved using alcohols. Finding enough clear, watertight containers of the correct size was a hinderance for me. Seals wore out too fast, evaporation occured and specimens were lost (or worse liquids leaked into my other stuff). Dried worked best for me.

 

Doesnt seem that I have been much help for you. Sorry I couldnt offer a Hey, heres the best way... idea for you.

 

edit- Here is one example of a specimen i would love to preserve. The photo is bad but it has incredibly vibrant red/white/black with very find intricate patterns. be a shame to loose them!

 

Beautiful spider there!

[moo]

Here's an interesting dragonfly guide that mentiones using acetone (insert the appropriate "www" at the beginning)...

 

www.mndragonfly.org/manual.html

 

Excerpt: "The preservative of choice for adult Odonata is acetone because it does a fairly good job of preserving colors, which can be important in identification. Acetoning is not difficult. You need to soak the critters for at least 8 hours (overnight is fine), then allow them to dry before putting them into permanent envelopes."

 

Just curious (no experience in this field), has anyone tried sprays such as polyurethane, lacquer, etc.?

 

moo

[Cedars]

Here's an interesting dragonfly guide that mentiones using acetone (insert the appropriate "www" at the beginning)...

 

.mndragonfly.org/manual.html

 

Excerpt: "The preservative of choice for adult Odonata is acetone because it does a fairly good job of preserving colors, which can be important in identification. Acetoning is not difficult. You need to soak the critters for at least 8 hours (overnight is fine), then allow them to dry before putting them into permanent envelopes."

 

Just curious (no experience in this field), has anyone tried sprays such as polyurethane, lacquer, etc.?

 

moo

 

Nice link. Easy to read, loads fast and has good info!

 

I have thought about the sprays but again the chance of missing an area on the specimen, or creating air bubbles is high (hairs). It gets sticky fast so your window of opportunity to fix this would be small. I thought also of thinning the lacquer/varnish and trying multi coats but then how thin is too thin? Plus many of those products darken something your using it on, rather than drying truely clear.

 

I will have to try the acetone, its affordable, seems easy enough to do and maybe with a bit of research I can contribute a few dragonflys to this effort. We have a huge population here (like hundreds and hundreds floating over the road in summer, clouds of them it seems). Theres bound to be several examples stuck to my radiator/grill after trips to town.

[Ganoderma]

I am not too sure about that group but i dont think its very good for spiders. That said every group responds differently to certain chemicals. beetle larva turn black in alcohol fo rexample, but it dropped in boiling water will fix teh colour protiens and remain, more or less, the same. I will read into acetone for spiders, but i think its better left for dragonflies and cleaning butterflies/moths.

 

Laquers have turned everything i have seen dark, beetles seem ok though. a school here has some grasshoppers they sprayed. a once bright green hopper is now a dark greeny/brown like dieing grass.

 

I should ad di am not one to go out collecting a bunch of things to mount. Most of these animals i keep as captives and attempt to learn more about their husbandry and mating habits. If all goes well i get babies and try to do the full cycle. At present i have only 3 bugs i killed for mounting. Just dont want to look like some prize bug hunter :hihi:

[Cedars]

 

I should ad di am not one to go out collecting a bunch of things to mount. Most of these animals i keep as captives and attempt to learn more about their husbandry and mating habits. If all goes well i get babies and try to do the full cycle. At present i have only 3 bugs i killed for mounting. Just dont want to look like some prize bug hunter :hihi:

 

Just so you know I only posted that I collect only animals which have already died because I am simply a collector. If I was say, a science teacher, researcher, etc. I would change that rule and collect what I needed to complete the project.

 

There are legitimate reasons to take a live sample, but I personally dont feel I qualify for that. And I only posted that bit about my own personal choice because there are many who read the forums. It is definatly harder to have a collection under the rules I have for myself, but over the years it has developed into an interesting collection, partially due to the contributions others have made to it because they know I collect and they think its cool. All contributors to the collection have to obtain the specimen under the same rule. They have to have found it already dead or taken it legally via hunting or fishing.

 

And of course, not all of my collection is dried bugs. It includes rocks, fossils, egg sacks, nests, feathers, etc.

[Ganoderma]

I completly respect that! i wish more people followed similar rules. I too don't follow that rule, but i do study a fair bit and teach some to my older students. I am starting a new project where i would like to attempt to document taiwans spiders. Especially orb weavers. next year i plant on taken a month off to explore orchid island and see what i can dig up. Perhaps by then i will learn of a better way to preserve colour.

 

Thanks for the info, it has helped me explore ore paths ;)

 

if anyone else has any input or comments, please post.