Insects Galore

Hello! Call me Lacewing (any pronouns). I am an entomologist who specializes in entomology collections. AKA, I specialize in dead bug storage.

This blog is for sharing my current large project with tumblr, since the opinions on insects here is very positive! This project has been in the making for years, but work really started ramping up last year. My current task is spreading roughly 3000 lepidoptera (butterflies and moths), which I started February 2026. Before that, I mostly did a bunch of preparation work.

This blog will contain pictures of progress, techniques, tools, tips and tricks, and anything else I decide to throw in here!

Feel free to message me, ask me questions, etc.! I apologize if it takes me a while to respond - I am pretty busy. All photos used are my own - please do not use them without permission! Additionally, all views stated are not reflections of the views held by my employer.

Many of my posts are scheduled!

Below you will find a list of my tags.

Finished drawer again!

Fun fact: most butterflies and moths that are blue have structural color - color comes from the structure of the scales on their wings that are able to reflect light back due to their shape. This color doesn’t fade because it is a physical structure that would have to be eroded, and produces an iridescent effect.

Yes, absolutely! Thanks for reminding me, I completely forgot to add that onto the post. For anyone in the US, Ecology Supplies also has angled balsa wood spreading boards and is US-based. There’s also some not-terrible angled spreading boards to be found on Amazon, but quality control with those does also leave something to be desired. If you’re in the US and need spreading boards fast, making your own is usually faster than waiting for some to arrive in the mail.

I’ve only converted flat spreading boards to angled spreading boards one way, so I’m sure the way I do it isn’t the best, but it’s what I’ve got so hopefully this helps! It’s a bit wordy so be warned, also it’s less tips and more a straight tutorial. I wasn’t sure how else to format it!

It’s a pretty simple process though - I originally tried to make wedges to create the angle, but that was much too time consuming, plus it was impossible to get all wedges exactly the same - and if you want both wings on the specimen to have the same angle, you usually need that to be exactly the same. 

So I ended up with a much simpler solution: cut some styrofoam rectangles. This was nice, because the amount that I wanted to angle the boards is exactly how tall most of the styrofoam I have is. I determined what height I wanted by measuring the height of the outer ends of my various angled spreading boards (that were purchased and not DIYed), and going “okay I want something around these heights”.   

Also disclaimer: I don’t have a protractor. I wish I had one for this process, but it would’ve taken too long to get it. I highly recommend one if you’re a perfectionist like me and/or bad at eyeballing straight lines. I am good at eyeballing straight lines generally, so I forwent the protractor. 

Anyway, I figured out the height I needed, then cut several different widths and lengths of small styrofoam rectangles. I ended up with this template: 

Since my angle was pretty mild, I only needed 4 rectangles - one in each outside corner. If your angle is pretty drastic and/or you have a long spreading board, I’d definitely recommend either adjusting your rectangle and/or adding more styrofoam for extra support - if everything is foam like my stuff is, it will bow and deform in the middle while you’re pinning. 

After making sure they were as square in the corners as I could get them, I then secured each rectangles with two pins on opposite sides to make them extra secure. I then placed the two spreading surfaces on top and pinned them down. Here’s a photo of where all my outer pins are - this is a side view of the spreading board: 

I was also taking care to make sure everything was parallel or perpendicular to each other - basically nothing was tilted when you compared to it anything else. I made sure that on all 4 rectangles, the ends of the spreading surfaces were roughly on the same place on each rectangle. This insured my angle was going to be the same for each wing when I went to spread - if a rectangle is a lot closer to the center channel (where the body goes), the angle is going to be a lot harsher and I didn’t want any discrepancies like that. I eyeballed a lot of that part, and if something was pretty close, I said “good enough”. Here’s a photo (front view) that hopefully shows what I mean, with the red representing the spreading surfaces pins, and the yellow showcasing how the spreading surfaces are roughly the same amount past the rectangles: 

And this works pretty well for me. The only annoying thing is that when you need to change the size of the center channel, you have to unpin both spreading surfaces. If you don’t, you’re going to end up changing one wing angle, but not the other. It’ll be all lopsided. 

Also, if you’re converting spreading boards that you 100% DIYed yourself (you cut everything yourself, then assembled everything yourself, there’s no machine-cut edges to be seen), making sure the angles are the same can be a bit frustrating, unless you’re someone who can cut as straight as a machine. This is because the base can be a wonky rectangle, the spreading surfaces can have an angled center channel or be different lengths, etc. You end up having to eyeball and make 50 adjustments - unless you have a protractor to help you out. 

Let me know if anything doesn’t make sense or isn’t clear! I’d be happy to explain more. 

There’s several different ways to relax a lepidoptera specimen’s flight muscles, once those muscles have stiffened up after death. This relaxation allows you to position wings, antennae, legs, etc. how they want, so that you can get a picture perfect specimen! I’ll list these methods here, along with associated videos. All relaxation methods can generally be combined for the best results.

Disclaimer: the lepidoptera in some videos are spread by putting holes in their wings with pins. This is NOT recommended and NOT best practice, you do not have to damage specimens to spread them nicely!

Relaxation Chamber - a slower but typically safer and easier method, like a sauna for the specimens. There are 50 million different ways to do this!

As a bonus, here’s what I based my current relaxation chamber off of, for relaxing large amounts of specimens (though I have made a few changes to make a relaxation chamber of my preference):

Injection - works instantly for specimens that have been dead for a few years, though for anything older it has to be combined with a relaxation chamber to fully relax those flight muscles. This segment lasts from 2:00-3:15 in this video.

Tendon Cutting - extremely fast and effective, but only recommended if you have a good knowledge of lepidoptera internal anatomy, a small and very sharp scalpel/blade, and generally a larger specimen. This method is only in the first 10 minutes of this video.

I let my specimens dry on baking trays that I have on a baking rack - I highly recommend those for large projects like this, where you’ll be drying several hundred lepidoptera at once.