Does anyone know what crawled out of here? Found hanging from a lily pad about 6 inches above the waterline of a small but very well established natural-ish pond. I'm in the southwest of the UK.
Please kindly ignore my disgustingly dry gym hands.
I started pinning bugs this year so am still very new to everything, I pinned my first May bug right at the beginning of May (pictured) but at the time wasn't aware that larger bodied insects get super oily and absolutely reek during the drying process. It is what it is with the specimen I've already done as there is no way in hell I'm attempting the wings again, but I have found 2 more may bugs in the meantime which I would like to pin.
I've done some research on here and found a lot of recommendations for an acetone bath in 100% pure acetone, which I have just purchased, but just wanted to seek some advice so I don't miss anything else glaringly obvious this time round.
Firstly, is it better to put the insect in the acetone dry or already rehydrated? And if I do put it in dry will the acetone rehydrate the specimen for me?
Secondly, how long should I leave a large beetle like a may bug in there?
Also, I've been reassured that it will not but would rather double check than risk it, will this damage the insect in any way such as changing colouration or causing shrivelling? If so is there a better way to do this other than cut the beetle open (I'm clumsy and have poor eyesight and do not trust myself to not destroy it).
Finally, is there anything I can do for the existing beetle (he is no longer on the polystyrene) to make him a bit less greasy without ruining the effort I went to to pin him? I've already accepted its just gonna be a bit of an oily early attempt so I wont be heartbroken if the answer is no lmao.
I have stainless steel pins and a glass jar to use and the insects I'm looking to soak are unpinned and not on polystyrene (not trying to accidentally create napalm).
Appreciate any advice or pointers anyone may have.
I found this guy munching on my kalanchoe houseplant this morning, hes incredibly tiny so I took a cutting of the plant and moved it all into a jar with mesh as a lid. Does anyone have any advice on how to raise it or what it could be? Google reckons it's a silver Y moth (I am based in the UK) but I'm not sure how accurate that is as it's so small that it's hard to see any identifying features, other than the way it moves like an inchworm. Will keep supplying him/her with fresh kalanchoe leaves every day but if anyone could give me pointers on an ideal location to keep the jar itself or anything else at all it would be much appreciated (I've never kept caterpillars before).
this is the best arthropod photo i have ever taken i had to share.