Blog: Insect Collection Photographs – Part II

I remember my own experience making an insect collection during the summer between my freshman and sophomore year of high school. I used thin black pins from the local university book store and found some light green Styrofoam that I cut to fit in a rectangular box. One of my friends and I made insect nets: Netting sewn into a sock-light shape with the open end gathered onto clothesline wire that was looped and duct taped to a dowel or old broom handle. They worked reasonably well! Butterflies and moths were my favorites – but I also was very pleased with dragonflies I captured as well. I included at least 2 cicada killers but not captured with the net; I put a jar over the hole I saw them disappear into! It was a memorable experience from the late 1960s.

I never did see a cecropia moth back then…but my son-in-law has several specimens. The one with the bushier antennae below is the male. The female is the larger of the two.