Back in the 70's i spent most of my free time as a young teenager out chasing and collecting butterflies and moths here in Sweden and I always had a great interest in entomology.
1989 to 1992 I got the opportunity to work in Angola in southwest Africa.
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There were a civil war going on in the country a no ways to get my hands on any entomological equipment.
Back then we had no internet, one free phonecall back home per month and all communication with our company was by Telex...
In 1991 I had the chance to move to the Swedish compound in Miramar where we also had a small backyard.
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Next problem was how to kill the butterflies and moths. I never thought about using the freezer and got the not to bright idea to make use of my first aid kit and use a syringe to inject them with water saturated with salt.
It worked great to kill the butterflies but it was a really bad idea combined with the sewing pins (not stainless) a got my hands on to pin them.
After a while most thoraxes "exploded" with rust and the specimens I will show here are unfortunately in poor condition.
I am at the moment trying to respread and save as much as possible of what I collected.
The thread will be about the butterflies I collected mainly during april and may 1992 at the end of the wet season.
I was quite suprised by the number of species that appeared in a 700 squaremeters backyard in the middle of the capital with 1 600 000 habitants (present population 9 292 000).
I will try to ID them but would love to get confirmations or corrections from the experienced members on this forum.
/Leif Karlsson
