r/insectpinning

Horn, trumpet, clarinet, saxophone — the full lineup.

Shame the piano is too big to fit😭😭😭😭

I noticed that some of my hornets had a pile of debris under them, then I noticed the molts of the larvae and a single dead adult beetle. I keep my main collection in a wooden box, I've found the molts of larvae both inside and outside the box but I can't see any hole in the box that they might've used to enter the box. I had 2 dead insects that weren't pinned outside of the box, they are eaten as well. I've placed the eaten unpinned ones and the pinned ones that had debris under them or had molts of larvae on them to a separate container. What should I do now? Do I put that separate container into the freezer? Do I put the entire collection into the freezer? How do I save the rest of my collection?!

My first mantis pinning! I skipped the gutting step because I figured she was pretty tiny, so fingers crossed she dries out all the way 🤞🤞

Okay so I found this golden silk orb weaver, froze it, thawed it and pinned it (this is my first time pinning a spider)

Pinning went great and it’s been drying for about 4 weeks now. I went to set it up in its shadow box today and everything seems to have dried well except the abdomen. I guess I thought after all that time it would be dry too but it’s totally not. It’s like a half filled balloon. Wrinkly, very soft and floppy, and definitely still a lot of fluid in there. In moving it onto the flower some fluid leaked out but not all. I’m not sure what to do exactly because it’s been glued down to the backdrop now. Should I just leave it longer to dry more? Will it eventually all dry out? Should I go get a syringe needle and drain the abdomen? Not sure what to do.