Buying specimens in bulk for an entomology workshop

[nitinra]

Hi all,

I am conducting a Lepidoptera workshop for Native American school kids in Montana in June. I will be taking kids out to the field to observe and identify local butterflies, followed by light trap for some moths. I also want them to get an experience on pinning butterflies and maybe take a few dead ones home. I am looking for suggestions for sellers who sell wholesale butterflies (common ones) that you have good experience with. I recently ordered from Insect-sale.com and they were great! I am hoping to get a bit more diversity in the specimens that the kids can take home and hence looking for other options. I don't want to buy from etsy and would rather support an entomological collector/supplier. The size of the class is ~30 kids and I plan to have each kid go with ~10 Lepidoptera each.

Thanks for your help!

[Chuck]

I have a bin of various dried US leps you can have. They are of course papered and dried, so would require softening in order to be spread.

I'm amazed I even have any. I always kept many extras around for projects such as this, but it's been a long time since anyone had asked me so I unloaded thousands last year to an institution.

So I can send 100 or more if you want. But why not have the kids catch then set fresh specimens? It will be easier to set them, and the specimens would be theirs.

Which tribe/ nation are you working with?

[nitinra]

I have a bin of various dried US leps you can have. They are of course papered and dried, so would require softening in order to be spread.

I'm amazed I even have any. I always kept many extras around for projects such as this, but it's been a long time since anyone had asked me so I unloaded thousands last year to an institution.

So I can send 100 or more if you want. But why not have the kids catch then set fresh specimens? It will be easier to set them, and the specimens would be theirs.

Which tribe/ nation are you working with?

Dear Chuck,
Thank you so much! Can you please PM me your price? Getting parental/school permits to collect butterflies is a lot more work for the university (University of Montana) and handling 50-60 kids would be difficult in the field. I will be relaxing the specimens 48 hours in advance and then get them to pin. I will be working with the Flathead reservation tribe school students. They will be taking the specimens with themselves. We will have half a day of butterfly walk (no catching in the wild, but I will be catching a few to show them some interesting biology), followed by DNA extraction of a few Pieris butterflies that we have reared in the lab and pinning. I unable to send you a PM.

[Chuck]

I can send you a box of specimens at no charge.

I do need a shipping address. I'm not sure why you can't PM, perhaps one needs a certain number of posts first?

[adamcotton]

Yes, that's correct. New members can only send PMs to moderators or reply to PMs sent to them from other members until they have posted a certain number of times. I cannot remember the number, but it is a mechanism to stop spammers from sending PMs to members.

I believe that if you PM nitinra he will be able to reply to you.

Adam.

[Chuck]

PM sent to nitinra.