Killing beetles (sorry)

PD image by Emilian Robert Vicol

Mark Telfer has a page on his website where he makes a very good case for collecting (that is, killing) beetles - and your taxonomic collection, as a reference collection and way into entomology, is included under his argument. Of course this won't convince everybody but it gives a good scientific reason for those that decide to choose this group.

You might also like to read the Field Studies Council's code of conduct for collecting invertebrates, and Holly Dillon's blog post about the subject.

He also summarises the ways they can be dispatched.

Traditionally people used jars with laurel leaves torn up inside - the cyanide gas released naturally from the leaves kills the beetles. There are logistical problems because you want to keep a note of where you found each specimen, so you need to keep each specimen separate, but still let in the fumes.

An alternative is to use ethyl acetate (I have some you can have). You can set some plaster of paris in the bottom of a jar and let a little of the solvent soak in (or use a paper tissue with a few drops on it). Again the beetles will be overcome by the fumes (but do leave them in long enough as it's quite horrible to find the beetle you're pinning start to squirm). An issue with an ethyl acetate killing jar is that it really needs to be glass, as the solvent will melt plastic. But glass jars don't mix well with rucksacks and fieldwork unless you're very careful.

My personally favoured method is the freezer - the beetles can be popped in for a while in their individually labelled tubes, and I admit that I reduce my guilt by not being able to see them expire. Mr Telfer says the downside of this method is that it leaves the beetles quite stiff when you come to pin them.

There's plenty more useful advice about these and other methods on the page linked to above.

Read on for information about how to pin and label your specimens.