some assembly required

[Jshuey]

Too often, big skippers rot in the tropics if they are not property preserved. They simply fall into pieces after you relax them, and I almost always throw them away. But every now and then, an important bug (at least for me) comes in, and I try and piece them back together. Here is an example of one - a female Jemadia gnetus from Columbia. It would be the only specimen I have from Columbia, but also just the second female in the collection. So I re-assembled the bug as best I could.

First, I gently pinned it and spread the forewings. These were almost falling off, so I used BioQuip insect adhesive to secure them to the thorax (and the thorax to the pin as well). If you look closely at the left-hand photos, you will see that I lost the very basal FW blue band reflectance next to the thorax because of this glue - but acceptable. I used white glue to attach the head to the thorax, and then back to the BioQuip adhesive to attach the antennae. I flattened out the hindwings and let everything dry for a couple of weeks.

Then I carefully slid the hindwings into place, and again used the adhesive to secure them. After a couple of days, I moved her to her new habitat in the collection. You can see that she is noticeably larger than my only other female (just above and to the right). But she is also noticeably paler blue and she has much more expansive hyaline areas on the forewings. I think that she is happy in her new home!

John

[Trehopr1]

Wow, that is indeed a VERY admirable effort on such a fine specimen.

Well worthy of its status as being a large female from a country not represented in your collection.

My "hats off to you" truly John for such a fine job !

[kevinkk]

It is a great job. Clearly more patience than I have. Skippers are safe from me in the field .

[biscuit153]

Beautiful work.

Bioquip adhesive is great. I've worried about where I might get it in the future. Does anyone have any idea what this adhesive is or where it can be sourced?

[Cabintom]

Really informative. I'm still not sure why, but I tend to have this problem with Graphium specimens more so than any others. I've tossed several nice specimens because they've just fallen apart.
It'd be good to know if there's anything specifically special about "insect glue". Hopefully I can drum up a decent local alternative.

[Chuck]

Anything large-bodied can rot in the tropics. I find this particularly so with Saturnids; bring them home papered, put them in the relaxing container, and they fall apart.

We've discussed this before; do not use Elmer's glue, it will fall apart with moisture. I presume the BioQuip glue is fast setting- maybe a cyanocrylic super glue? I use top quality (and price) wood glue, which looks like Elmer's, but isn't hydroscopic. It takes hours to fully cure, but if I make a mistake when placing wings, etc. I'm not stuck with that forever.

Nice job, John. I hate to toss specimens because they fall apart.

[Jshuey]

Beautiful work.

Bioquip adhesive is great. I've worried about where I might get it in the future. Does anyone have any idea what this adhesive is or where it can be sourced?

I don't know what is in this but I do know that it is similar to model aircraft "dope" - which is a paint that has a very unique smell. If you have ever used this stuff - you know. I just Googled it and the thinner is butyrate, whatever that is. You can find it in hobby shops or on line. I tried buying clear dope once - but it did not adhere very well to insect cuticle.

john

[58chevy]

I have always used plastic model airplane glue (Testors for polystyrene, contains toluene). It works great and dries enough to secure the insect parts in place in less than a minute. No need to wait for hours.