Arthropods collection,
preservation and transportation
G.L.S. Galgamuwa
Senior Lecturer
Department of Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine,
Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka
Introduction
• Class Arthropoda includes insects, spiders, mites, and
their relatives
• Insects are arthropods
• Arthropoda: "jointed feet“
• General characteristics of insects:
- The body is comprised of 3 distinct body
regions -- head, thorax, and abdomen
• The thorax of adults bears 3 pairs of legs and 2 pairs
of wings
Basic Equipment to collect Arthropods
• Forceps • Notebook
• Vials containing • A strong knife and a pair
alcohol or other of scissors
preservatives • A small, fine brush
• Killing bottles of • Notebook
various sizes. • A hand lens
• Small boxes or • Bags.
containers
• One or more aspirators
• Absorbent tissue for use
in killing bottles and
aspirators.
Collection methods
Hand collecting:
• For large insects
• Holding them by the sides of the thorax so that they
can not reach skin with their jaws and/or stingers
• For slowly movement of insects
• Forceps must be used.
Collecting Nets:
• Three basic forms: Aerial, sweeping, and aquatic.
Aerial net:
• For collection of butterflies and other flying insects.
• Both the bag and handle are relatively lightweight
Sweep nets
• Made of heavier-weight and sturdier materials.
• Better suited for collecting plant-infesting insects
like bugs, beetles and other chewing and sucking
insects of medium-small to large sizes.
• Bags are made entirely or partially from heavier
cotton cloth.
Aquatic nets
• used for gathering insects from water.
• An aquatic net should offer minimum resistance when dragged
through water but have a fine enough mesh to capture small
specimens.
• The bag of the net need not be deep, and should be made of a
synthetic mesh such as nylon.
Common sampling methods for non-Apis bees: (a) Blue bowl trap,
Moericke trap, or pan trap; (b) Blue vane trap; (c) Townes-style Malaise
trap; and (d) aerial (left) and sweep nets. Attribution: (c) Ceuthophilus
Aspirators and Suction Devices
• a convenient and effective device for collecting small
insects and mites.
• it is well to keep small pieces of absorbent tissue in
the vial or tube at all times to prevent moisture from
accumulating.
• Be cautioned that there is some danger of inhaling
harmful substances or organisms when using a
suction-type aspirator
Beating sheets:
• This method is useful for collecting sessile or wingless groups
such as some beetles and bugs, stick insects, spider and mites.
• One of the best collecting technique when the weather has
turned cold, or early and late in the day, when normally active
insects seek shelter in vegetation
Berlese funnel
• Berlese funnel is a good tool to collect small insects
from leaf litter
• Barleys funnel consists off a funnel with a coarse
screen on the inside and a dish of alcohol below to
catch the insects as they move out of the plant
material.
Traps
• defined as anything that impedes or stops the
progress of an organism, this subject is extensive,
including devices used with or without baits, lures, or
other attractants.
• Trap depends on: • location, time of year or day,
weather, temperature, and kind of attractantused, if
any.
Windowpane Traps
• One of the simplest and cheapest traps
• consisting of a windowpane held upright by stakes in
the ground or suspended by a line from a tree or
from a horizontal line.
• A trough filled with a liquid killing agent
• insects flying into the pane drop into the trough and
drown.
• They are removed from the liquid, washed with
alcohol or other solvent, then preserved in alcohol or
dried and pinned.
Gravid Traps
Malaise Traps
• The trap, consists of a vertical net serving as a baffle,
end nets, and a
• sloping canopy leading up to a collecting device.
• The collecting device may be a jar with either a solid
or evaporating killing agent or a liquid in which the
insects drown.
• Attractants may be used to increase the efficiency of
the
• traps for special purposes.
Pitfall and Dish Traps
• Simple but very effective trap consists of a jar, can, or
dish sunk in the earth
• A cover must be placed over the open top of the jar
to exclude rain and small vertebrates while allowing
insects and mites to enter
Moericke Traps and Other Color Traps
• An aluminum or plastic pan is painted yellow and placed on the
ground (or a depression may be dug and the pan set in the
depression) and filled about 1/3 full with salt water, or
someother non-toxic fluid.
• A few drops of detergent of some other surfactant is added to
the water to break the
• surface tension.
• Insects attracted to the pan fall into the fluid and perish.
• Yellow seems to be the best color for traps, but various kinds of
insects react differently to different colors.
• Some recent research indicates that certain parasitic wasps
respond most strongly to blue.
Light Traps
• This is the most common method of collecting
nocturnal specimens that hide or rest during the day
in places where they are unlikely to be seen.
Sticky Traps
• In this type of trap, a board, piece of tape, pane of glass,
piece of wire net, cylinder, or other object, often
painted yellow, is coated with a sticky substance and
suspended from a tree branch or other convenient
object.
Water trap:
Fly water trap
Suction trap:
They are used to collect ballooning spider and small
flying insect such as flies, aphids and wasps.
Food trap:
Baits, Lures, and Other Attractants
• Any substance that attracts insects may be used as a
bait.
• Natural products, chemicals derived therefrom or
• synthesized, and secretions of the insects themselves
may all be used as attractants
-
Cattle Baited-Net Trap
Human Landing Catches
bait trap for insects
Pheromones and Other Attractants
• Substances naturally produced by insects to attract
others of their own kind are known as pheromones.
• They are often used in traps to aid in controlling pest
species.
• Most pheromones are highly specific, attracting only
one
• species or a group of closely related species.
Specimen Preservation
Liquid Agents for Killing
• Killing should be done immediately after capture.
• Killing and storage methods vary according to the type of
arthropods that has been collected.
• All soft bodies insect (e.g. aphids and termites) and all eggs and all
larvae must not be allowed to dry out once they are dead. They
should be placed directly into a liquid preservative usually 70%
• The following insects should NEVER be placed in liquid: those
With scales in their wings (e.g. Lepidoptera) • Insect covered with
a waxy bloom ( some Coleoptera)
• The liquid killing agents are: • Ethyl acetate (CH3CO2 • C2H5) •
Ether (diethyl ether, C2H5 • O •C2H5) • Chloroform (CHCI3) •
Ammonia water (NH4OH solution).
Preserving agents
• Ethanol (grain or ethyl alcohol) mixed with water
(70 to 80 % alcohol) is usually the best general
killing and preserving agent.
• This choice depends on the kind of insect or mite to be preserved
• Parasitic Hymenoptera are best killed and preserved
in 95% alcohol.
• This high concentration prevents the membranous wings from
becoming twisted and folded,
• hairs from matting, and soft body parts from shriveling.
• Formalin (formaldehyde) solutions should not be used because
the tissues become excessively hardened and the specimens then
become difficult to handle.
• If the alcohol becomes too diluted, the specimens
will begin to decompose.
• Water is not a preservative.
• Larvae are usually kept permanently
• in alcohol, but some may be mounted by the freeze-
drying technique or by inflation
Refrigeration and Freezing
Medium to large specimens may be left in tightly closed
bottles for several days in a refrigerator and still remain
in good condition for pinning as will smaller specimens if
left overnight.
Dry preservation
• It is standard practice to place many kinds of insects
in small boxes, paper tubes, or envelopes for an
indefinite period, allowing them to become dry.
• It is not advisable to store soft—bodied insects by
such methods.
• Diptera should never be dried in this manner because
the head, legs, and most of all the antennae become
detached very easily.
Specimen preparation
Direct Pinning
refers to the insertion of a standard insect pin directly
through the body of an insect.
Double Mounts
Insects that are too small to be pinned directly on
standard pins and yet should be preserved dry may be
pinned as double mounts.
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